Guild Wars 2

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

I’m also sure all asura can’t wait to have a taste of the legendary golemancer with it’s special golem suit transformation on F2 and it’s load of pollution skills as utility.

Substatic.6958:

How much dps does Power Reaper do now, just out of curiosity. Specific number.

Power reaper probably still sit on their 21-23 k dps.

Edit 3: More happy news is Scourge does not have unwanted combo fields.

It does… dark field on elite skill.

Nope! devs be like :

Necro? They have infinite health and highest sustain in the game! If we give them block, evade or mobility other profession will find them unkillable. So this would be gamebreaking.

Musha.4025:

I’m looking at the numbers for the Soulbeast, compared to actually having a pet, and I can’t help but wonder how this is an elite specialization. Beastmode causes you to lose a significant amount of attributes. It seems that this was only made to pander to the pet-whiners.

As an example, let’s look at the Lynx pet. By itself, at character lvl 80, the Lynx has
Power: 1524
Precision: 2211
Toughness: 1524
Vitality: 2211
Condition Dmg: 1000
By itself, the Lynx does some very nice damage!

When you enter beastmode, you trade all those atts for +200 condi dmg and +100 precision on yourself, a SIGNIFICANT decrease, not to mention the loss of a combat companion and meatshield. 200 condi dmg increases bleed dmg by a measly 12 dmg per stack while 100 precision yields a paltry 4.75% crit chance. These numbers seem utterly pathetic to me.

I am either missing something entirely, or this is going to be another disappointing ranger elite spec. I REALLY hope it’s the former.

The point is that, merged, you will hit more often than your pet and more reliably. There is also fewer risk for you to lose access to your mechanisms since it won’t be able to take damages.

There are area of the game where it will be incredibly valuable to have this “beastmode”, like in wvw for example. Just for that, this elite spec can’t really disappoint.

What’s really amasing is the potential of the spec. This spec have huge potential in survivability and mobility. It also allow for amazing potential direct support with fields, combos, boons and heal that weren’t used efficiently before. As for damage, condi build shouldn’t lose a lot since the ranger was already the main source of conditions. And for power, we are already used to suck at power damage…

Jahromi.2079:

Look at attached screenshot from their old site. It’s pretty obvious. The only two classes their higher ups don’t care for are rev and necro. No surprise those are the same two classes that nobody wants in raids, since the people de facto in charge of the meta don’t want them. There are objectively better necro builds that have been bench-marked by others and myself already, yet qtfy ignores them and posts their own builds with tons of disclaimers so they can pretend they’re trying.

Well, you really can’t blame them for mastering professions that were historically performant in the PvE game.

When the game was released, it was somewhat of a mess but a few things became obvious pretty quickly.
- You needed boons to sail through the dungeons easily
- You needed mobility to avoid the trash mobs
- You needed a lot of timed dodges to survive the one hit ko mechanisms.

After that, the most reliable professions became the one that could provide just that and the necromancer was not listed in any of those 3 requirements. Then, to top this there was a need for heavy burst ability and, let’s be honest, the necromancer wasn’t good at power damage and it’s ramp up for condi damage was horrible.

At the HoT era, condi damage changed and raids appeared making the need for heavy burst and dodge a lot lesser. However, the necromancer was still underperforming in boon providing (and most generally “usefull support”), dodge and mobility.

Reaper officially aimed at balancing the power damage of the necromancer, however this missed the mark because they focused on instant high damage instead of the sustained high damage more needed for the raid content and there were still no boon or meaningfull offensive support nor mobility. Which make the reaper a marginal in raid even with the best build possible. I can recall that at the launch of the raid, reapers were tried in all manner possible but always fall short on expectations.

Scourge is coming and for sure there is still no offensive support, still no mobility and the survivability dropped down. The dps still favor conditions (while I believe that the power dps won’t be that bad either) but in a more “busty” fashion. Scourge will be tested over and over at it’s release. I believe that, ironically, it will perform better than reaper as a power spec in raids but will still lack this offensive support that would have make him desired.

The bit of extra survivability that it will grant to it’s group won’t answer what’s needed to be reliably taken into a raid simply because survivability is the first thing that is cut off when there is a need for more damage. And, god!, the whole timer thingy on raid boss is a manifesto shouting : “Do damage guys!!!! Do damage and drop down this useless survivability!!!”

To make this extra survivability “valuable”, Anet would have to design raid encounters in such a way that you have to survive for the whole timer and even after. In other word, create “defensive” encounters instead of “offensive” encounters. That probably won’t happen.

I believe that reaper touch was also a pretty good candidat for the amo system. Since the regen is, at best, unneeded they could have transform this skill into a 4 amo damaging skill that also apply vulnerability.

Oh but wait! That would maybe have make power necromancer a bit better… Nevermind, it’s just to good of an idea to make it live.

If I were you, I’d drop down Sand savant for Feed from corruption, especially in sPvP. I believe that the boons that feed from corruption will provide you will overwhelm any benefit you could gain from sand savant.

I mean… That’s almost free access to aegis, protection and stability, which is huge for survivability.

Well, qT just state the usefulness of each profession and look for the most optimum builds for each.

Their view on the necromancer is sadly right, there is no room for the necromancer’s “support” in PvE raids, which leave just dps roles that need have pretty high damage to be competitive against other professions. And since power necro are a bit low when it come to their dps output, it’s a relief to see that at least on the condi side the necro is at a competitive level even if not outstanding.

qT is not evil or anthing like that, they just state facts that can help people to have a good view of the potential of their party as whole when they enter a raid encounter. It allow to easily know if yu enter in a group that will struggle from a lack of boon uptime and dps or not.

What the player base make out of these metric is where the evil lie.

What I like…

I like the fact that spectral walk allow me to return to my position when I miss a jump in jumping puzzle. That’s to the point that I favour my necromancer over my mesmer when I know that there will be no need to help other folks. Beside the fact that I got mre tankiness to resist some dangerous environment that you can encounter in jumping puzzle is another great point.

Great thread Lily, I was 100% agreeing until the Scourge part. But that’s because you do have an optimistic view of the spec while mine is more pessimistic (I wanted to say realist but I’ll refrain to do so).

Anchoku.8142:

What would you like to see for Reaper traits when it goes pure power?

I want a source for this assumption before even thinking about reaper traits that would fit in.

I want to see a post from the dev that is in charge of the necromancer where he state in what state they see the current necromancer and reaper, in which place they want them to see this 2 specializations and how they intend to reach such a state.

From HoT release to the last balance patch there is no change that have been done to the necromancer and to the reaper that can back up a “we want to make reaper a competitive power dps”. No! In fact most of the change that have been done pushed the reaper in a condi nich.

However, it’s easy to come by with power trait, even little changes on actual trait can improve a power spec.

Chilling nova can see it’s ICD reduced for exemple
Chilling victory could give the reaper 10% damage on chilled foe alongside it’s effect. They can even shave off the might duration to 3 seconds in exchange.
Soul eater could have at least a 5% damage increased given alongside the last changes. (The fact that it wasn’t added last week somewhat prove by itself that Anet don’t want to improve the reaper’s actual power damage)

Heck! they could even remove the shackle of the axe trait, making the 10% increased damage while wielding an axe affect all necromancer’s skill instead of just the axe skills.

I can’t help but think that there is no will to make the power necro perform at the same level than any dps centric profession. So when I see a : “Hey! they will make reaper THE power spec! what trait do you think we will have?”. I can only see that as a troll thread or someone that try to dellusion himself and other players about a fantasy involving a specific specialization.

Give me proofs that we will be able to slam at the door of anet’s devs that reaper is intended as a power spec and they have the will to do what’s needed to make this happen! Because, in my view, at the moment, power scourge have already the potential to top reaper’s power dps on large health pool mobs and reaper already do high enough instant damage to not need any dps boost in PvP (which does not mean that those damage are easily done in practice).

The reason why the preview of scourge was with dagger/WH setup is simple… That’s the best set to grow some life force quickly.

Zoltreez.6435:

Dadnir.5038:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Dadnir.5038:

Have he ever been great?

No, Power Reaper has never been “great.”

That’s what I thought… From my point of view it doesn’t seem that the power reaper lost any damage since HoT release, just that player found that it worked better as a condi spec on the long run.

So is the title asking for a nerf on condi so that players feel forced to play power? That’s sad. That mean there will be no improvement, only the nerf on the barely ok condi spec in PvE. For what? More power damage would mean nothing in PvP where ennemies have health pools that gravedigger can already eat pretty easily. In PvE even with damages at the same level than a power DPS, the reaper would still struggle to find a place because it has virtually no support that improve the raid as a whole.

What kind of people will stand there and let you hit them with a gravedigger ????
or any other ultra slow channeled Reaper ability ?
and if they are out of dodges and mobility abilities because the planets alligned for you to unleash your reaper might ? well… immune immune immune immune block block block block and now your dead…..

you don’t pvp much do you ?
and for PvE it needs dmg buffs everyone and their grandmother have better DPS….
its not the nonexistent group utility that players dont want a Power reaper…
it because Power reapers dps is horrible compared to like half the other classes out there….

Also most of your reaper abilities will never hit thx to the nonexistent mobility reaper have and the bloated mobility kit other classes have people just dance you arround and melt your shroud and when its gone step in and instantly melt you with a good burst….. meanwhile you barely hit them a few times lol…

Zoltreez, somehow I wonder ow long you’ve been playing this game… Anet balance thing over potential (especially for the necromancer), not over practical situation.

So yes, the potential of the gravedigger is threatening enough in PvP to prevent anet from making it even worth. Gravedigger is a potential 1 hit KO due to it’s high base damage and power coefficient and in the dev’s view it’s logical to leave at least some room for error to the adversary.

The best solution would undeniably be to reduce the base values and coefficients but improve attack speed and add some damage modifiers on traits. But Hey! Look! We are stuck with ridiculously low life steal values since release due to “potential”! We are stuck with virtually no support due to potential of our soft conditions! It took age for axe to achieve it’s height due to potential of a range attack that bypass range protection skills! We are stuck with health shield mechanism as our sole defense because devs see this as a really strong mechanism in theory!

Necromancers are balanced around their potential, nothing more nothing less. To put it in a more scholarly way it’s like theory and practice. Necromancer aren’t balanced positively over practice, only theory.

Gravedigger can theoretically, on your most lucky day that happen once every 45th day of the month and with the offensive support of your whole team behind you, down in one hit the 5 opponents of your team. That’s on that basis that power reaper is balanced. None of the other profession can achieve such a feat theoretically.

shadowpass.4236:

Dadnir.5038:

So Primal cry hit 5 targets 3 time over 1.5 second, apply 3 bleeds and 9 vulnerability and have a cool down of 20-25 seconds… You feel that’s weak?

And spiritual reprieve which is a 4k group heal that also grant 3 second of resistance to every group member and have a 40 second cool down seem also weak for you? Seriously, you even got 25% outgoing healing to boost that that come along… Cumulated it apply 15 seconds of resistance!

3 bleeds is the equivalent of:

• 3 auto attacks on shortbow
• 3 procs of Sharpened Edges
• 3 procs of Sharpening Stone
• 3/5 of Splitblade
• 1 Crippling Talon
• etc. etc.

So yes, 3 bleeds and a little bit of vulnerability is weak for that long of a cooldown. Not to mention it has a cast time of 1 1/4 seconds. If it was instant cast, that might be justified because it could fit into a burst rotation. But right now, it’s meh.
__________________________________________________________________

Where did you get 15 seconds of resistance from? In general, I’m not a fan of long cooldowns. I don’t mind it if they weakened the effect to justify reducing the cooldown, but when you can only use an ability once or twice in a fight, it feels slow imo.

Wait you’re serious?

That’s 3 bleed and 9 vulnerability on 5 target. Each of these target will take the damage and the conditions. And you dare use single target to compare? Each of the power damage can proc those stack of sharpenned edge or sharpening stone. Each of those tic of damages can proc your offensive stances effect. It’s 20 second CD!!!

The potential of the skill is not 3 bleeds but altogether 15 bleed split across 5 targets and 45 vulnerability split across 5 targets with relatively high direct damage on top of
that.

That is seriously strong. Look carefully, it’s not a cast time, it’s a channeled skill that hit 3 time over 1.25 seconds. With the displayed numbers it could even do more damage than some of our weapon’s auto attack.

As for the resistance I’m doing the exact same thing as you with the revenant rune. I’m just adding. The skill heal 5 target for 4k each and grant 3 seconds of resistance for each of those target. It’s like having 5 character using their own 4k heal procing each their own resistance, except that they are ot shackled by the need to use a specific runeset.

The potential of the skill is 20k heal and 15 second of resistance.

Even like that you’ll most likely take a moa as healing pet which will give it’s own 4k aoe heal, without resistance but probably on a 20 second cool down. That can already end up to be a lot of heal when there is already a dedicated healer spec on the ranger.

I’m saying it on a joke note, but more than that and this elite spec could even replace the druid as a healer but with more personnal damage and no fear to lose it’s special mechanism.

Well, from a PvE point of view :

- The Scourge shouldn’t be far from the reaper’s power dps, perhaps even a bit ahead with the help of alacrity.
- From the condi side, due to a lack of boon to corrupt, the reaper should be ahead by a small margin in regard of dps.
- For survivability, it shouldn’t really matter since the 2 spec should have a very different playstyle. (Not that it really matter in PvE, after all 12k hp ele survive there why would a Scourge die?)
- For support, there sure should more than what the reaper dish out, however, I doubt that there is any room for that kind of support… maybe at PoF release because of the novelty, like the rezzing trait at HoT release.

The Scourge should be welcome in WvW, well that’s probably where it’s playstyle can shine the most. It’s tools couldn’t be more fitting.

- Crippling and tormenting enemies zergs.
- Dispelling allies conditions.
- Tons of boonhate.
- Ability to stay afar.
- Ability to port your allies over a short distance to avoid bothersome aoe.

As for PvP, I think the scourge shouldn’t be to lost. There will be boons to corrupt and condition to cure so it shouldn’t be a dry desert for him to have some use. But what I think should be it’s greatest strenght will be it’s ability to aoe “burst” (both for power and condi) with the help of desert shroud. The survivability shouldn’t be to shabby either after being accustomed to the new playstyle which should be less “straightforward”.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Dadnir.5038:

Have he ever been great?

No, Power Reaper has never been “great.”

That’s what I thought… From my point of view it doesn’t seem that the power reaper lost any damage since HoT release, just that player found that it worked better as a condi spec on the long run.

So is the title asking for a nerf on condi so that players feel forced to play power? That’s sad. That mean there will be no improvement, only the nerf on the barely ok condi spec in PvE. For what? More power damage would mean nothing in PvP where ennemies have health pools that gravedigger can already eat pretty easily. In PvE even with damages at the same level than a power DPS, the reaper would still struggle to find a place because it has virtually no support that improve the raid as a whole.

Reaper is being steered away from condi-damage because it was always supposed to be a tanky, melee-oriented power elite

Nope, nothing like that happen. Reaper hasn’t change a bit except for one trait that gave him a different kind of sustain from GS. The only thing they did was nerfing the shroud as a whole and make some room for corruption by stripping core necro signet from their corruption.

Power reaper is still in it’s awkward state where you have to play condi to reach a descent amount of damage where high damage are valued and the power build are still threatening for players due to gravedigger however power spec didn’t improved at all and condi spec barely lose any damage. That’s the reality.

On personal not, I never got the quack for berserker and I liked to play axe. Let’s be honest, My build gained more damage and 5% more attack speed. I don’t feel nerfed at all personally.

So Primal cry hit 5 targets 3 time over 1.5 second, apply 3 bleeds and 9 vulnerability and have a cool down of 20-25 seconds… You feel that’s weak?

And spiritual reprieve which is a 4k group heal that also grant 3 second of resistance to every group member and have a 40 second cool down seem also weak for you? Seriously, you even got 25% outgoing healing to boost that that come along… Cumulated it apply 15 seconds of resistance!

Have he ever been great?

Community : Hey Anet!!! please we need offensive support! we suck in PvE because we haven’t any!

Anet (1) : What? again?

Anet (2) : I don’t understand, we alredy gave them lots of corruptions!

Anet (1) : Maybe they didn’t like signet. Let’s go with a support e-spec that corrupt a lot and make sure they understand that it will be the support spec of the necromancer!

Anet (2) : So some corruptions and…?

Anet (1) : Necromancer is all about the shroud so obviously they will share it! It will be awesome! This spec will make everybody into necromancers!!!!

Anet (2) : Oh! corruption and extra life… got it! What about the extra stuff?

Anet (1) : They like torment! Give them torment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anet (2) : Oh nice! This will be great. However, what do we do about signet, they will overstep on what the spec do…

Anet (1) : Hu? what?

Anet (2) : well yes, signet corrupt on use since a bit…

Anet (1) : why not going with something like guardian signet?

Anet (2) : double effect and light aura? Light aura is kinda out of the necromancer thematic no?

Anet (1) : And elementalist signet trait?

Anet (2) : keep passive when used?

Anet (1) : Erk no!… Oh right! they wanted to benefit from signet in shroud let’s do that!

Anet (2) : You sure? The signet will be strong…

Anet (1) : No no! only when they take the trait, it should be balanced with the other GM trait.

Anet (2) : They will say that it sucks…

Anet (1) : We are giving them what they want! there is no way that they will say that! they will be blown away!

And thus the scourge was born… Changes to the signet trait were held done in order to avoid that the necromancer lose to much support before the release of the scourge.

Just to show some usefull support to anet.

Lich form change to Lich aura.

Lich aura : for 8 seconds, imbue your attacks and up to five allies attacks with dark power, dealing 15% more damage.
CD : 120 seconds (90 second traited)

Rending shroud : While in shroud weakened nearby foes’s defense.
Rending shroud (9s) : Reduce toughness by 225 points
interval : 1 seconds
Radius : 600

Parasitic contagion replaced by corruptor’s zeal.

Corruptor’s zeal : each time you inflict yourself a condition by corrupting or drawing conditions, gain life and grant expertise to allies around you.
Corruptor’s zeal (5s) : gain 180 expertise
Radius : 600
heal : 150 (0.08)

Vampiric ritual: wells are centered on you, move alongside with you and drain life with each pulse. Wells recharge faster.

Vampiric presence replaced by blood aura

Blood aura : while in combat you and your allies build a thick aura of blood with each attack, protecting you from incoming damage.
Barrier gain on it : 33
Blood aura (9s) : gain barrier on hit
number of target 5
radius 600
In combat only

Might be enough for the support part. Let talk about defense now since we lost so much from the shroud and the loss of plague form.

Putrid defense : Take less damage from poisoned foes. If you are poisoned, poison foes that hit you.
reduced damage 10%
1 poison stack (3s) when hit
ICD 1 second.

Vital persistence : shroud skill recharge faster, when you leave the shroud gain a barrier.
recharge 20%
barrier 25% of max shroud. (roughly 3k with 0 vitality added)

Let’s look at the focus :

Reaper’s touch : Send out scythe that strike your foe and reduce their defense. Benefit from amo system. 4 charges.
Range 1200
number of charge 4
CD charge 15 seconds
vulnerability (2) 10 seconds duration
damage 240
CD between charge 1 second.

Flesh golem : Now know how to swim.

Life transfert : reduced CD to 30 seconds (that’s the bare minimum)
Park path : improve projectile speed by 33%.
Life blast : reduced damage to 274. Cast time 1/2. Reduced after cast. slightly improved projectile speed.

FrostDraco.8306:

Lord Velar.1509:

Zoltreez.6435:

Oh great another Broken Condi build is what we realy needed am i right ?

Well it is condi wars right now lol, i do agree that necros has never lacked damage and id rather see survivability and mobility boosts

However in a sense of pvp i think that its a good thing since scourge will more than likely be just as insta targeted as necros has been with reaper (or since forever)

Since it lacks any sort of shroud to use as a shield to your health i think its a fair trade off kind of how PL necros would use it as a last ditch effort

“If I’m going to die here all of you are coming with me”

“Necro’s have never lacked damage”……the whole entire reason people are worried about the interaction with deathly chill is BECAUSE they lack damage without it.

“Necro never lacked damage” → in PvP
Deathly chill is strong in WvW and PvE.

Necro don’t lack condition damage in PvE. Necro lack the tiny extra ability to grant usefull support alongside those damages so that they become welcome in raid group.

It’s been like this forever and ever.

I can say with certainty that the Scourge won’t give this “tiny extra support” much needed and things will stay as they are.

Awkwardly, I still have this lingering hope that anet’s dev will take our numerous feedback into acount and make some change to death shroud so that it become more userfriendly.

But well… whenever I think they will do something good they have something along that shatter my hopes.

Like getting rid of vital persistence, it was something needed and undoudtely a good thing for the necromancer as a whole but it come along with so much damage to the shroud as a whole that I can’t believe that they even tested the changes. And to top the pain they kept lich form as a transform with it ridiculously abysmal uptime for… nothing good at all.

There has been countless thread that revisited the death shroud skills into something more user friendly, working alonside the traits to reach a balance with the reaper shroud. There has been countless thread that discussed about how reliably improve the necromancer support so that it become desirable. There has been countless thread saying how good we already are at condi and lacking at power damage.

Yet none of the balance patch answer the concern that the players face and offered solutions about. Scourge is supposed to be a support spec yet it will fail at it because :
- your teammates will need to invest in vitality
- you will need to invest in vitality and heling power
- you won’t be able to give enough “extra” to cope with the 2 previous things.

In the end, the scourge will found it’s place as an extra dps which will underperform as much as reaper and the support that he provide will be deemed as unneeded. Which will put the scourge on equal term with the reaper and the vanilla necromancer : unneeded in raid/dungeon, welcome in wvw zerg and “situational” (I’m taking the word of Emapudapus here) in PvP.

So in the end, I truly believe that in most situation, at the moment, the reaper shroud is better than the vanilla shroud but whatever you take, vanilla shroud, reaper shroud or scourge, the necromancer will still be shackled in it’s current (and everlasting) positions in each game mode.

Well a lot on people on this forum want to think that Anet will transform the reaper into a power spec. They probably won’t do it.

What reaper give to the necromancer is a different way to fight, a way to fight that is more based restraining a foe to fight it in melee range. Objectively, the reaper, while being a pushover when it come to power damage in PvE, is threatening enough against player to prevent anet from giving additionnal damage to power reapers.

The same way, what scourge will give to the necromancer is a new way to fight. The scourge won’t dig in the melee like a necromancer or a reaper, the scourge will set the battlefield, control it and try to stay on the ouskirt of the fight while soaking incoming damages with small bundle of extra health.

Thought, it doesn’t mean that a build that heavily focus on defense won’t be able to tank, nor does it mean that the scourge will be forced to stay at range in pve as a damage dealer. The real strenght of the scourge in PvE will be it’s ability to dish out extra damage via the “shroud” skill without having to transform. Also, there is no “sand shroud”, there is just a skill that globally work like locust swarm except that it doesn’t have any cast time.

Nope it’s not. On those 3 area you will perform better with reaper shroud.
CC : reaper is meant to put chill on foes, have an aoe fear and a hard stun.
Boon corrupt : Reaper have a shorter cool down on it’s skill 2 which benefit from path of corruption.
Condi : Vanilla shroud put torment, bleed and burn. Reaper shroud put poison, more burn and potentially more bleed than vanilla shroud. (The number of poison stack blow away the low number of torment stack of vanilla shroud)

Well, lich stayed as a tranform skill, there is nothing good to gain from that. A transform skill on a long CD is doomed to be useless. Come on the worst tranform out of all necromancer’s transform skills yet that’s the one they decided to keep.

When I saw those changes I was so infuriated to see that they kept it as a transform that it haunted me all night and blow away all spec of hype I could have for the next e-spec. Transform skill just can’t be good skills when they are plague with a very short uptime.

Well… I’m not sure if it’s still a thing but I’m pretty sure you can put power necro, raid and fun together. That is if you are ready to pay a raid team to carry you throught the raid. They take care of everything and your damage are basically an unneded bonus but you have fun, you are power necro and you are in a gw2 raid (Though it’s not fun for your wallet).

Barnabus Stinson.1409:

They wanted it to be a slow heavy hittin Spec I know, but it doesnt hit that hard power theif can out perform hit for hit and at a higher speed. So the design has already failed. a 20% increase wouldnt even make the AA’s fast, 3/5, 3/5, 4/5 seconds each. Thats still Slower that pretty much every other rotation in the game.

I don’t understand you or you don’t understand me.

Nowhere did I say that it was “performing” competitively. I said that according to design the reaper was a slow hard hitting spec. It’s indeed slow and gravedigger indeed hit hard.

The necromancer and it’s specs are all about design. Or more like the picture that the devs have in mind about them. Not to mention that they alway balance thing according to the best possible scenario.

Let’s look at the thing objectively. Anet choose to give no damage modifiers to reaper which can only mean one thing : Reaper was not meant to be a direct dps spec. A direct dps spec is someting like weaver with damage modifier on adept, master and grandmaster traits.

I’m positive to say that I will never enjoy playing the reaper’s greatsword and I’m relieved to see that scourge seem to already be able to achieve the same level of direct dps than reaper.

If anet really, really really wanted to make the necromancer desired in the areas of the game where he is not desired, there is plenty of non game breaking things that they can do but obviously don’t want to do (maybe because they think : “Oh! we will keep this for another e-spec!”)

- Change Rending shroud so that it become an aura that apply a toughness debuff on foe around the necromancer instead of applying the already hundred time caped vulnerability. No substancial change in all pvp things or open PvE thing, yet invaluable debuff for raids

- Change parasitic contagion so that instead of healing for an amount of condi damage it heal you for each condition you put on yourself (both drawn from allies and self corrupt from corruption) and apply an expertise buff to allies for 8 seconds when you do so. Make corruptions attractives by giving them more survivability and group support

- Change Vampiric ritual so that instead of applying the silly protection, it transform the well into moving fields than work like berserker’s flame of war. A reliable melee option for wells and a very good synergy with DD builds.

- Make it so that unholy martyr work with all self inflicted conditions. A breather to any condi build

And I’m not even trying. Those change almost don’t impact the game at all, they are mainly QoL changes to the core necromancer, yet those change are enough to fix a lot of the issues that the necromancer suffer in the game and open countless doors that stayed close for years already.

Come on… ain’t it obvious? They can’t keep the elementalist dps on the high side when we know that the weaver will be able to gain 7% + 7% + 10% damage increase thanks to 3 traits that you can take together.

Superior element, swift revenge and element of rage are our culprit for the dps loss.

They must have been really inspired to achieve a traitline with traits that have so much diversity…

Well, you are missing the fact that this trait come from your own fantasy

Anet want the greatsword to be slow and slow it is. The supposed design behind the reaper is the inescapable slow monster whose prsence chill you to the bone, slowing you and terrorising you. Simply put a slow melee dps that annoy it’s foes with load of chill.

The reaper was described as a direct damage dealer because of gravedigger which is an attack that achieve high instant damage. The fact that it does have tons of drawback is the reason why in the end the reaper is mostly used as a condi spec. Yet the design of the spec can’t allow this 20% attack speed that would be a breather.

Now, the reason why Scourge will be better at direct damage than reaper is pretty obvious as well. Take the standard rotation of the dagger/X poxer necro (which is as effective as the power reaper in the first 50% health, then add free damage on top of that every 16-20 seconds thanks to desert shroud. Here it is! Reaper’s direct damage outdone.

NB.: the real thing that you are missing is that it would be to way to dangerous/imbalanced in PvP.

Well, I’d have explain that a bit differently but it work as well…

Signet of Suffering was overstepping the boundaries of the next e-spec. Because this e-spec have traits that make the shades corrupt boons and grant might… See? SoS in a nutshell.

Lich form change is meant to allow a shroud/transform feeling with modertly high damage by combining the effects of lich form and desert shroud.

Change on other spectral skills are mainly convenient change to make those skill pay off without the investment of a trait while subtly introducing in a skill that is supposed to easily recharge LF. (Except that Anet never listen to the fact that the issue of the skill is it’s inability to connect reliably. That’s your gacha skill!)

The various stacks of torment added talk for themself.

And a few shroud traits have been modified to make sure that they are appalling with the shade mechanism.

The other changes just make sure to add insult to injury.
- Shadowfiend underperformed due to it’s attack speed. Slow hard hitting thing don’t work in game we all know it intimately.
- Spitefull Spirit gain bug fix. Yeah! that took them all this time to allow this trait to grant retal again. A bug fix…
- It took them years to discover that nobody was using spiteful renewal and they decided to add the effect on healing skills. I hope the effect apply after all the effects of the necromancer’s wonderfull skills are applied. Maybe that way I won’t have 10 vulnerability stacks on me after healing myself.

- Ritual of life… revive trait… Life from death… revive trait… Yes, they buff our unwanted support. because they still think that revive is wanted. They still think that going to the fight by assuming that your allies will be downed is the right state of mind for a necromancer.

- Vampiric ritual. Actually this one made me laugh. Now PvE players have 5 seconds prot from it instead of 3 seconds… awesome. And they double siphon effect… well that might allow the necromancer to survive a little longer.

A lot of those changes are disappointing, especially when we’ve seen the Scourge spec, especially when there are people that think that the scourge spec could be a support spec. However, none of those change none of those change will allow this spec to stand it’s ground as a support in PvE. The scourge as it stand will only shine in wvw and maybe in high level fractal (which is basically nothing new for the necromancer).

Jinn… You are aware that if you wear full equipment, this percentage given by the signet will lower a lot, right?

Anyway, this change to signet and any other change they’ve done won’t change 1 thing : The necromancer grant nothing to the raid that can’t be granted in a better way by any of the other professions of the game. And that’s why the necromancer will still sit have a spectator seat and not a player seat.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Why is the signet trait “must have”. For pvp it is likely complete garbage. Totally unviable. I havent tested it but I am almost certain I am right.

It basically shift what you lost from VP to the signets passive effect. If you depended from VP, the loss are compensated throught the passive of the signets and to have it in shroud you need the goddarn trait.

Fix necromancer…

Step 1 : make rending shroud apply an unique debuff around you that reduce foes’s toughness instead of applying vulnerability (this need to be done at least in PvE).

Step 2 : scatter a few “deal x% more damage on foes [insert conditional application of the trait’s damage buff]”. Easy peasy trait that the necromancer lack badly.

Step 3 : Swap minion’s life stealing values and necromancer’s life stealing value on vampiric. (This is to improve survivability for builds that do not rely on minions)

Step 4 : Add traits that impact the necromancer positively when he draw a condition and/or he inflict himself a condition. (If I hurt myself I want to get stronger in exchange, not spend more of my ressources to manage the damages)

4 reasonables easy and interesting steps meant to make the necromancer valuable in PvE competitive content as well as in PvP and meant to reconcile ourself with some badly supported mechanisms. We don’t need more of this or more of that, we need to be able to take advantage of all the things we already have. We can’t take advantage of our direct damage because we lack traits tht improve them. We can’t take advantage of our self harm because we lack trait that make them interesting. We can’t take advantage of our ability to reduce foes defenses because we can’t bypass the vulnerability cap. We can’t look for build diversity in regard of life stealing because minions builds are vastly superior to any other in this domain and that is thanks to only one trait!

play ele that is what anet wants from us necros cya at bdo tho

The correct answer is not ele, it’s “weaver” or guardian at the moment.

Reaper was meant to be its not, So here is hoping for sword reaper in the next expac actually being a power build thats viable. Only 2 years to wait guys.

Well, probably not. Most likely Anet try to create e-spec that are meant to work with any kind of damage. In this regard Reaper achieved this goal and Scourge, while it’s not directly apparent, have the potential to achieve it either.

Anet seem hell bent to not give any direct damage trait to the necromancer but instead, try various conditions around which the e-spec revolve. The next spec could very likely be a “poison” spec or a weakness spec disguised as a power spec but only usefull when using condi gimmick.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Dadnir.5038:

Well, the vital persistence nerf had to be done. The reduced decay effect was way to overwhelming to leave any room for other traits.

And, Lordrosiky, sure all these traits are undirectly nerfed by this change but all build that didn’t use VP have been made competitive at the same time. The only thing that is scarry is that they shifted the reliance on VP to a reliance on the signet trait. An unsightly move if I can say…

Yes but traits that depended on VP for viability such as shrouded removal and unholy santuary should have been buffed when this trait was nerfed. And if they didnt do it now then they will never do it.

The traits listed are at the level of strength which makes them kind of ok when coupled with VP. Now VP no longer exists these traits are just bad. They were balanced around VP existing previously

The problem is these traits will take at least 3-4 years to be buffed to the point of being usable. Shrouded removal will not be usuable until this game dies most likely. Such is the speed they balance at.

If you instantly make 10-15 traits totally useless then this damages build diversity a lot.

I don’t disagree with you, but still VP reduced decay has to go. The trait was an issue, not a negative issue but a positive issue. The other traits have been weakened indirectly but it is not that bad. The “on shroud skill 1” traits won’t really lose any real efficiency while the “while in shroud” traits might be relient on the signet trait and signet of undeath (well… yeah, saying it feel like having poop in my mouth)

Like I said the real worry come from the signet trait. I don’t get what the hell happen in the dev minds for them to thoughtlessly transform this trait into a “must have in any build” trait. Wanna keep moving freely while in shroud? must take the signet trait and locust signet! Wanna reduce partially my life force decay? must take signet of undeath and signet trait or signet trait, unholy martyr and plague signet! Wanna have some easy regen in shroud? better take signet of vampirism and the signet’s trait!

This is the stupidest thing that they could do to the necromancer. Well… in my eyes their “rework” of the lich form is at the same level of stupidity thought.

Well, the vital persistence nerf had to be done. The reduced decay effect was way to overwhelming to leave any room for other traits.

And, Lordrosiky, sure all these traits are undirectly nerfed by this change but all build that didn’t use VP have been made competitive at the same time. The only thing that is scarry is that they shifted the reliance on VP to a reliance on the signet trait. An unsightly move if I can say…

So… After the change of Plague form to Plagueland, while I was disappointed to lose our useful elite transform, I manage to grow a seed of hope that we could finally get rid of this ugly thing which is Lich form.

Worst of all, the recent annoucement about futur e-specs were starting to hype me, motivate me.

So when I managed to take a glance at this balance patch I was in High spirit.
The elementalist’s notes made me laugh, gutting so blatantly the elementalist dps so that Weaver can overpower any other elementalist build.
Then came the guardian and I was baffled! They finally did it! They finally changed spirit weapons into something very usefull.

At this point my hope shot throught the ceiling, just skipping engineer and mesmer to direct a look at the necromancer!

I read quickly, see an announced change on signet and lich form. I’m excited, I look at signet and inwardly say: “Oh good! That’s an interesting change!”.

And then… It’s here… the “lich form” change… The wave of disappointment that overthrow me, depress me, tire me…

Yes! Anet, you achieve it! You managed to thoroughly Wash the hype away!

…

…

Ok! now that the bloody tears have dried up a bit, let’s just say what would have been hundred time better than those changes.

- Change rending shroud so that it apply a toughness debuff instead of applying vulnerability. Make this tiny change at least in PvE. This would buff tremendously the usefulness of a necromancer in a party, making him desirable.

- Change/remove soul comprehension.

- Add stuff with barrier because, with what barrier you are giving the scourge, there is no way that this will work.

I love how PvP players like to reject everything that they don’t like with a : “Erk! that’s a spec directed at PvEer!!!”. With a lot of PvE hate. However, while PvE might feel a lot “easier”, it’s bound to very rigid requirement and most of the things that PvP player reject as PvE thing do not meet those rigid requirements.

Scourge is a spec that will perform extremly well in environments that are overflowing with boons and conditions (which mean PvP and WvW).

The condition choice and conditions durations of the spec are short and meant for condi burst against moving enemies (which mean again PvP and WvW).

Even the main argument that barrier aren’t a good enough way to mitigate damage for PvP can’t be valid as an argument that it is a PvE spec. Simply put, mobs tend to hit way harder than any player in PvP.

From an objective point of view, Scourge shouldn’t perform badly in PvP, however, players will have to change the way their defensive gameplay from a traditionnal necromancer to the defensive gameplay of a profession that is close to a warrior. I agree that the low barriers values are scary, that the fact that they decay is even more dreadful, however, there will be a bit more freedom in what you can do that should make the necromancer a lot more potent in PvP.

In PvE, I tend to agree with Zephar, if anet don’t create perfect environments that would be extremly toxic for other professions, the scourge won’t shine at all (exactly like the current and old necromancer). It’s a shame but the only place in PvE where the necromancer shine is in high level fractal, Scourge is following the same way.

Rework spite? Why spite? There sure is a few traits that are a bit… hummm… weak in this traitline but other traitlines are not short on that either.

So long as Soul Comprehension goes into the dumpster where it belongs…

While I agree with you on this trait, I doubt that such a thing will happen on this update. This trait does not impact scourge any more than it impact any other spec so there is no reason to modify it.

Obviously, necromancer will take the top ranking. After this patch it will destroy anything in PvP, PvE and WvW, nothing will resist him.

Second will be elementalist which will be able to face tank anything without taking earth magic trait line or water magic traitline.

Third will be revenant which will gain tremendous survivability from gainig barrier on legend swap.

Forth will be thief, because they can manage whatever happen.

Fifth will be the warrior with new interesting mechanics that will both hurt him and benefit him, there will be a lot of whine but in the end it will feel balanced.

Mesmer, guardian, engi and ranger won’t see any significant change and will be left behind.

(That’s baseless guesses that most likely won’t happen… You could even say that it’s a fantasy :p )

Starbreaker.6507:

I’m assuming that Jacaranda is ths venus-fly trap looking thing they show in the video for Soulbeast?

No jacaranda is the gray flying root. The flowery thing is called an iboga. Those are 2 of the very first mobs you encounter when you play guild wars nightfall.

Jacaranda were mainly air magic elementalists which result to a pet in gw2 that strike with lightning magic.
While Iboga were mainly mesmers, translated in gw2 by a pet loading conditions on it’s foes. (especially confusion)

Most likely, the scourge defense will revolve around :

1- desert shroud which will be your “Oh kitten ” button (The goto skill which may even allow you to heal you thank’s to transfusion and life from death
2- and the pre emptive defense skill sand flare.

Out of that, with an heavy investment in “sustain” core traits there is definitely one sh*tload of potential sustain. So much that I’m guessing that a lot of player will whine about unkillable scourge the same way that they complain about unkillable defensive warriors.

The thing that probably make the PvPers eyes shine is the massive boon hate that can grant you life force and give you directly the boons that you corrupt thanks to freed from corruption. This trait is the dream toy of every necromancer in an heavy boon environment. (Thought there is no way that this trait won’t be nerfed after a short time)

Scourge has barrier – that’s it. It basically heals you temporarily; nothing more.

You’re looking just at scourge when you’re saying that. Traits like Parasitic contagion take a whole different sense in a necromancer build where you benefit from the effect while under the effect of a barrier. Also desert shroud may even let you heavily benefit from a trait like transfusion.

For me, the corner stone of the scourge is the skill desert shroud. To many things are ultimately tied to this skill and if this skill is not a channeled skill like it seem to be, then personal survivability might be pretty good.

Ravezaar.4951:

I dont play Raids but as WP said if Anet starts implementing mechanics around Barrier then it can have it place cause looking at all the Elite Spez Scourge is the only one with Barrier for allies, also he has the most potential Barrier output.

I’d say that WP overrate barrier based on non decayng barriers on mobs.

The Condition dps output of the Scourge is potentially even higher then Reaper specially with the incomming nerf to"Deadly Chill". Alot of ppl consider it to be an support spec, I however see it as the future Condi Elite for Necromancer even with some old Terrormancer in it & I believe it has borderline OP Condi dps output.

Terrormancer… Nope! Simply put Guarish Pillar can only affect a target once per cast. The skill will only proc 1 second of terror on any given foe. As for torment… well… we are looking at a condition that last 2 seconds which is terribly not impressive. But yeah I think correctly geared and with a real focus on one’s rotation, the scourge will be able to rival the reaper with it’s 3 bleeds on chill.

as regard to FitG I almost certain it will proc on Maniffest Sand Shade, and I think it will be 3x 3sec Stability for when u place the Shades or 1x of 9sec Stability if you use the GM-Trait that grants you one big Sand Shade. Ofc this is speculation but this is what I think.

Traits that proc on entering shroud will proc when you use desert shroud.
FiTG, Spiteful spirit, Furious demise, Weakening shroud

Traits that proc on skill 1 use will most likely proc on shroud skills use which will make those traits pretty underwhelming.
Unyelding blast, _reaper’s might, dhummfire

Traits that proc on skill 2 will proc on nefarious favor (I Guess that is at least a good news)
Path of corruption

Traits that proc on skill 4 can only be given to desert shroud.
transfusion

Traits that proc on leaving shroud at the end of desert shroud (I guess desert shroud is the skill)
life from death, beyond the veil

Other traits that give you a benefit when you are in shroud are the only one that aren’t obvious and for which we will have to wait and see.
Armored shroud, shrouded removal, deadly strenght, unholy sanctuary, unholy martyr, speed of shadow, vital persistence, death perception

Those last traits could make or break the scourge dependent on whether their effect will still be tied on whether or not we are in shroud (which mean the desert shroud skill) or if they tie it differently (when next to a shade, for a short while after using a F skill… etc.).

NB.: Oh! Unholy sanctuary seem to be a good candidate to give us some barrier instead of health.

Odokuro.5049:

LughLongArm.5460:

Dagger is not a condi weapon. It’s an hybrid weapon that can work on both pure condi build, pure power build and Ideally, the combination of the two. We see that among several POF, specialization that A.net is really pushing the hybrid role and even got a new stat combo for it. Poison and vulnerability are good for any build, you will put pressure with bleed stacking and the fast dagger attacks(4 attacks chain in 1.5 sec which you can bombo with quickness). The big burst and CC, you can get from F1-F3 skills with the right pet option. Some the soulbeast skills got better tooltips compared to full zerk maul.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Soulbeast

Auto-attack chain: Vuln/Poison/Bleeding, plus “Multiple conditions”.

Weapon ability #2: Heavy bleeding (several stacks I am guessing.) and causes your pet’s next two strikes to inflict Poison.

Weapon ability #3: A leap that grants us Quickness, to undoubtedly ensure a follow up of the Auto-attacks chain of conditions, or transitioning into Beastmode faster.

So please, tell me, how those weapon skills even hint at them being, “Hybrid”, when they all inflict conditions.

Then you look at ranger’s sword’s skills and you realize that dagger’s direct damage are even better than the sword whom you would look at as if it’s a direct damage weapon.

This is how it is hybrid. If you gear for condition damage you’ll do fine and if you gear for direct damage you’ll do fine as well.

Don’t just look superficially, look at everything. Dagger’s direct damage numbers are more than decent, they top every other weapon of the ranger!

Yes but as a pre emptive bonus HP it will fail at making into a reliable support if it decay. Having something like that blood aura is the only way for such a support to be competitive. This mean that with blood aura you really become a support while without, most of it will go to waste.

Look at the val guardian (I take it because it’s the fisrt boss we got from raids). It got a mechanism that pulse 2k damage every 1 or 2 seconds. There is no way that a decaying barrier, as high as it could be, could allow the necromancer to support throught that. If you got a mechanism to prevent the decay it instantaneously become viable. And the fact that it force you into a support traitline make this even more valid.

We litteraly need to be able to constantly build up barrier and burst it a bit from time to time in order to be competitive as a healer. 50% HP look like a lot but in front of the damage dealt by bosses and even just elite mobs, it’s nothing, it can very easily disappear in one hit. The scourge just don’t have the means to only rely on pinpoint barrier application. If you need pinpoint protection, just ask a mesmer with it’s party wide blurr or a guardian with it’s aegis, it will work hundred time better than barriers.

Just who would even use that?

Vennyhedgie.5369:

Dadnir.5038:

In my opinion legend like that should replace racial skills nothing more nothing less. And then they could come up with really interesting e-spec that are not so… plain…

Should Shiro replace human skills then?

The bias is strong

Nope Shiro had transcend to an envoy. He wasn’t human anymore.

Core pets becoming usefull make me excited for this spec. That’s probably the only real reason for me…