Showing Posts For apoidea.7095:
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Making signets active AoE does not change the fact that the signets themselves have absolutely no synergy anymore with anything else. Before, signets had synergy with auras and therefore were complemented by aura traits as well as signet traits and burning traits (fire aura). I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge your suggested change directly before, but I believed that my argument that we wanted to protect a signet/aura build would clarify that your intended buff would not preserve the playstyle we wanted and certainly does not solve the fact that signets have no synergy.
I can ALREADY maintain 100% uptime of protection using the d/f fire’s embrace signet build. And yet I’ve never seen any complaint of this build being OP. I can make a video if you would like, but the combo chain maintains 100% uptime of all 3 buffs perfectly fine on a low enough cd to be looped over and over (no sunspot needed AND it’s our optimal might stacking/dmg combo chain). Still, the new changes bring a lot of strong changes (Blinding ashes cd only 3 sec now) so I see your point on some balancing issues, but I definitely do not agree with you on your perspective that 100% uptime of fury/swiftness/protection would be OP since we can already do that and yet d/d cantrip is still considered a better build for meta.
As such, I still see no overwhelming reason for why fire’s embrace was removed from the game.
(edited by apoidea.7095)
Could be a nice change for PvE, but I don’t believe PvP players will see much benefit from 7 second pulses as it is usually better in PvP to not stay in DS too long (after you use your 2, 3, 4, and 5, you’ll have nothing else to do for a loooong time except spam life blasts).
Still, I support this for some more PvE utility.
I wonder why they decided that blind should be a contender for an additional self-applied condition when taking Master of Corruption. Didn’t they say so themselves that corruption is meant to be inflicting conditions on yourself to transfer to your enemy? How do I land my transfer skills when I have blindness hmmmm.
Ok so ele has a strong trait with burning and necro has an inferior one…what was the point of this thread again?
Eremite, you’re basically claiming that necromancer’s dhuumfire and elementalist’s burning precision have some sort of connection, which they don’t really…In addition, necromancer has no access to burning other than dhuumfire, while burning is a core part of the elementalist class. As such, it makes sense to me that this elementalist adept trait is as effective as it is.
No offense, eremite, but making this thread and posting it on the elementalist subforum gets nothing done. It would be better to just make a thread on necro forums making a convincing argument as to why/how dhuumfire should/could be made stronger.
(edited by apoidea.7095)
my point for mentioning 8.5 seconds with arcana was to show that you don’t need to take arcana to have better than 50% uptime of protection, fury, and swiftness. because there are more auras on weapons skills, and more auras on traits, too. 1.5 second difference in attunement recharge doesn’t hurt the maintenace of those boons.
no where did i ever imply more than 3 trait lines being taken at once. i never used the word “and” when referring to 8.5 seconds when you take arcana, and the arcana comment was parenthetical, which means it’s a side thought, not part of the actual argument i was making.
fire + earth + air gives you 50% uptime without considering tempest defense or any weapon skill auras. and without arcana.
air + earth + water will also grant you better than 50% uptime with a proper rotation on certain weapon sets. taking all 5 aura traits in those lines grants a lot of protection, fury, and swiftness.
if you take arcana, by itself, you can maintain 30% protection, 100% fury, just by stance dancing.
no matter which way you look at it, protection, fury, and swiftness is really easy to maintain without fire’s embrace.
True, but maintaining protection/fury/swiftness is only part of the picture of a strong fire’s embrace build. Without this trait, auras come exclusively from combo chains and weapon skills, and some traits, thereby reducing the effectiveness of signet usage at all (ele signets already had a questionable presence, often being deemed as subpar to their cantrip cousin). Furthermore, the new change to the air line (+25% movement speed) makes it so that Air Signet’s passive is pretty much useless.
True, you didn’t use the word “and”, but you certainly implied it in using 60% as the number for uptime in protection, fury, AND swiftness with sunspot. Your edit certainly clarified what you meant to say, however, so cheers to that. One more thing about the math…protection uptime is only 3 seconds after applying an aura, so I’m curious as to why you grouped protection’s uptime with fury/swiftness uptime (5 seconds after applying an aura).
While your claim that auras aren’t necessarily lacking currently may be true, the point in having fire’s embrace is so that signets actually have a greater meaning in gameplay. In addition, having fire aura on signet activation makes the Signet/Aura playstyle much more effective and viable in the competitive sense.
The currently existing signet builds using fire’s embrace are able to upkeep an aura (usually fire aura) 100% of the time in combat. This, to me and many others, is an enjoyable playstyle that remains highly competitive. We are asking to see fire’s embrace again to preserve this type of gameplay, and the new skill changes simply don’t cater to these desires. Of course we’ll have to adapt when the time comes, but I certainly believe that, currently, there’s no strong argument AGAINST the existence of our beloved trait. Please bring back fire’s embrace!
TL;DR: What you say is true; however, I was specifically defending signet builds that depend on fire’s embrace. Without fire’s embrace, what synergy/role do signet builds have in competitive/slightly competitive environments? Wouldn’t you agree that losing fire’s embrace makes taking a signet build significantly less appealing? Weren’t we promised a new system that was meant to increase build diversity while being careful to not destroy the current ones? We’re fighting for a style of playing, not simply for a way to maintain protection, fury, and swiftness.
(edited by apoidea.7095)
they changed it for one reason: the new sunspot gives fire aura every time you attune to fire. if you take both traits to give boons when you apply an aura, you get 5s protection, fury, and swiftness every time you apply an aura. sunspot essentially has a 10 second cooldown (8.5 seconds when you take arcana). before you consider any other source of auras, that’s a potential 60% uptime of protection, fury, and swiftness. just from attunement dancing.
Except you cant take Sunspot (in Fire Line) with Protection (in Earth Line) and Fury/Swiftness (in Air Line) AND 8.5s cd on attunement (in Arcane). <—4 Lines already, not to mention you said “before you consider any other source of auras,” those of which belong to WATER and AIR. That’s a 6/6/6/6/6 build. As such, I don’t think having all these aura traits along with sunspot spread out across the ele trait lines justifies the fire embrace removal.
Removing fire’s embrace simply killed many signet oriented build (and yes, there are MANY builds that revolve around this trait, not just 1).
Generally speaking, the typical fire’s embrace build would have Fire and Earth, but the third chosen trait line would be the source of build diversity (based on just 1 trait!). You could go Air for Swiftness/Fury while being able to get Bolt to the Heart or even Fresh Air. You could go Water for the additional support and the ability to have a more tanky variant that can remove conditions much easier than the other variants. (Currently, signet builds don’t need to go into arcane but who knows, there might just be yet another build that uses fire’s embrace and arcane). Heck, you could even consider dropping earth for the sake of Fire/Water/Air (though dropping the new Written in Stone may prove to be counterproductive to signet builds.)
Of course we all will be able to live without fire’s embrace, but for the sake of keeping the build diversity promise, I strongly urge devs to reconsider merging fire’s embrace with conjurer again (conjurer is a weak trait as it is right now anyway).
(edited by apoidea.7095)
See that always been the problem with FE to make it work well you have to give up all boon duration that is kind of needed for aura protection to have a real impact in a fight.
You will be hard to kill but for the most part you truly cant kill any thing unless your up vs ppl who are not made for 1v1 builds.
You should seriously try the build(s)…I disagree with the comment completely
Same concept, but more effective than your build imo…I will miss this so much.
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Ember_Hybrid_Signet_D/F
Condi bunker ele has always been possible and I dare say more effective than power bunker, mostly due to condi dmg being conjoint with defensive stats on sets like dire and apothecary….
However, I’ve always felt like the earth traitline did not offer much for a condi ele, to the point of being counter productive to go 6 earth – you’d lose much of your defenses and get nothing in return. I find traits like diamond skin and stone hearth very limited and for the way I like to play ele (which usually involves 1vsX) their power is very reduced. From the new traits in the line I like geomancer’s training the most and its probably as much as I’ll invest on earth…. The new fire traits are very interesting for condi bunker as well… we’ll see, we can do a lot of theorycrafting but nothing is definitive until we’re able to run it.
If you use geomancy sigil along with signet of earth, then Earth becomes a vital tool in condition damage since it helps upkeep 10+ stacks of bleeding (stronger dmg than burning even)
Plague: This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds to you every second it is active.
2 seconds of bleed. 1 Stack.
5s increase with a trait that drops the skill to a 20s cooldown. I say it’s a good trade-off but that may just be me.
Actually, you’re wrong…2 seconds of bleed applied every second is the same as 2-4 stacks of bleed. (up to 4 stacks depending on your condi duration + bleed duration stats).
I think it might be just you that thinks it’s a good tradeoff because now, you’re forced to take Master of Corruption if you want to mitigate the 5 second increase in cd (5 secs is a huge deal, especially with a skill that acts as basically your only recovery). This then means that you cannot take either Path of Corruption or Terror, both of which are important in PvP (condi builds).
In addition, the self inflicted vulnerability only lasts 4 seconds. Putrid Mark has a cast time of 3/4 seconds and Deathly Swarm has a cast time of 1/4 seconds (not including after cast time and the fact that Deathly Swarm is a projectile, so it will take even longer to land/easier to dodge). You’re already losing a huge chunk of the condition’s duration by the time it lands (and it can miss EASILY).
If you decide to not transfer the 4 seconds of vulnerability, you have to think of what times you use your healing skill…when you’re under pressure right? Well with the new change, after healing, your enemy will have a 10% easier time bringing you down again (and with the changes to vulnerability, conditions applied to you after you heal will have a 10% increase in damage).
Oh, and if you do decide to take Master of Corruption, your heal goes down to 20 second cooldown, yes; however, now every-time you use a corruption skill (including your heal) you get 2 conditions applied to yourself instead of 1. Sure, you can transfer these conditions, but then you have to remember that you can only transfer a maximum of 3 conditions using your weapon skills (single target). I personally would rather not have 2/3 of my transferring ability wasted on transferring my own conditions. Especially if the transferring tools should be saved for countering the conditions the ENEMY has applied on you rather than YOURSELF.
Basically, the only way around all this is to use the “super awesome cool synergistic” signet build that ANet has made. Isn’t this the opposite of build diversity, in which there are countless viable options and combinations to utilize unique/powerful traits and mechanics? I personally find it ironic that the changes provide us with a cookie-cutter build that has synergy only with itself and not with anything else.
And as Lily has pointed out, necromancer has gained no truly competitive build, which is all we really ever wanted (potential to be meta).
Of course, we all have to wait to see the numbers to truly judge, but from the information we are given so far, necromancer still leaves a LOT to be desired.
(edited by apoidea.7095)
Suggested Change: Master of corruption converts one condition on you into a boon after using a corruption skill INSTEAD of adding an additional self-inflicted condition after using a corruption skill.
that defeats the purpose of corruption which is to allow u to transfer the conditions
unfortunately we have to take specific weapon sets for the transfer and plague form just kills u because u cant transfer
I guess it does, but master of corruption as it is now makes it so that corruption skills inflict 2 conditions on yourself. Given that the transfer skills only transfer 3 conditions (single target), you’re wasting 2/3 of your transfer ability as those 2 condition transfer slots could be saved for counterplay by actually transferring the conditions the enemy has placed on you instead of the ones you place on yourself.
I’d actually rather master of corruption simply be the cd reduction with no secondary effect then. Or maybe it inflicts a secondary condition on yourself but you randomly convert one of your condis into a boon (so you end up having 1 condi and 1 boon after using a corruption skill).
(edited by apoidea.7095)
Suggested Change: Master of corruption converts one condition on you into a boon after using a corruption skill INSTEAD of adding an additional self-inflicted condition after using a corruption skill.
If you have lingering elements, after you swap out of water, the soothing mist will refresh itself one last time (go up to 10 secs).
If you don’t have lingering elements, swapping out of water still allows you to keep soothing mist, but it’s 10 second duration instead of 13 seconds because it doesn’t get refreshed.
Honestly, the wells will allow for you to burst down enemies much quicker, especially in a power build. If you are really against using them, some other good utilities are:
Corrupt Boon- Remove boons and apply pressure; it’s fairly simple. Also, you can remove stability to turn it into fear, which helps out your pressuring.
Spectral Walk- Swiftness and allows for juking (escape chasing enemies).
Spectral Armor- Stunbreaker and allows for you to gain life force at an alarming rate (negate all damage pretty much if you are in Death Shroud with the skill on).
Flesh Wurm- Allows for you to teleport + stunbreak.
Spectral Wall- Good in WvW to knock people off cliffs and to allow for better escape (people run into the wall and are feared away more often than you think).
Blood is Power- On demand 10 might which is useful for increased damage.
Well of Power- Condition removal; extremely useful in WvW
You can also use Surprise Shot (stealthed auto attack in shortbow) twice before you are revealed to stack immobilize on the enemy (5 seconds). Immobilize is an extremely lethal condition that allows you to quickly burst down your target without them being able to disengage/escape.
As Drennon mentioned, the poison field and blast finishers are also useful. Poison field prevents foes from recovering hp as fast as they should (-33% heal when poisoned) and the blast finisher is self explanatory.
Oh, and detonating cluster bomb is powerful damage. And disabling shot is a good tool for invincibility frame.
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Or could be that we revert back to death shroud underwater….
But aren’t spectral skills about ghostliness in which case shouldn’t you lack the solid body to reflect/block projectiles anyway…(Sorry just commenting on the assertion that reflect/block fits into spectrals but I still do agree that we need some way to handle projectiles).
Guess we’ll just have to deal with infusing terror (stability) + Spectral Armor to absorb the damage as gaining life force until then orz…
It seems that renewing blast (the trait that gave healing properties to life blast/plague blast) got removed from traiting. While it is true that the current state of the game makes the trait rather useless, I think it’d be an interesting idea to tweak the trait somehow…
Suggestion: Similar to how Robert had said that the devs are playing around with transfusion being able to revive allies, I think it would be interesting to allow renewing blast to do the same (heal downed or dead allies).
For core necromancers, this would work out if each time the life blast hit an enemy, a small-radius field showed up at necromancer’s location (or the monster’s location, but idk how that would work with bosses) that granted X amount of healing.
I have no idea how balanced this would be and for that reason it might be a terrible idea, but the thought seemed intriguing enough to share. This would give reapers a unique party support while still playing into the necromancer theme of master of death/resurrection. Still, this trait would heal only allies rather than yourself and can only be used in the midst of combat close to the necromancer, so it might still be balanced if numbers are played around with.
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In regards to Reaper vs core necro:
The new Reaper’s Shroud really is a wonderful mix of all the things a necro could dream of. The ice field and finishers combined with the chill synnergy of the Reaper specialization, the faster attack rate, the scaling defense, the pulsing stability… it basically puts the regular Death Shroud to shame in almost every single way.
The advantages of DS: range, torment, immobilized. That’s pretty much it.
I’d like to agree with this and add another suggestion…As of now, it seems that reaper seems to benefit much more from Dhuumfire, Unyielding Blast, and Reaper’s Might due to the low cast time of the Auto Attack in Reaper’s Shroud.
Suggestion: Reduce Life Blast’s cast time (to 1/2 like in plague blast). If this proves to be too powerful, then the damage could be reduced a bit but then Life Blast might need a further effect (transfer 1 condition like in plague blast maybe?).
I’m wondering what nerfs the report includes?…I’m still reading through the thread (so many replies) but my standpoint is that we should be more hesitant to suggest that X needs nerfing before we really get to see how X performs (play it for ourselves).
Sure, suggesting some nerfing to seemingly overpowered traits/skills/etc… might help with balancing, but until we really get our hands on the new content, I believe these nerf suggestions may be doing more harm than good (as they imply that something is unbalanced when it very well could be more balanced than it looks on paper).
Take, for instance, the common misconception many make that the Death Shroud mechanic (currently) is overpowered because it acts as a secondary health pool. On paper, this mechanic seems rather overpowered; however, once players were able to play the necromancer, they found out that the Death Shroud mechanic is not as reliable of a defense mechanic as they originally believed.
Edit: I’m not saying discussion is not welcome nor that we should all be sitting ducks while we wait; however, from what I’ve seen so far, there have been a great deal of posts in which players are already suggesting nerfs to the class (which to me is quite frightening).
(edited by apoidea.7095)
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