Guild Wars 2

Yeah, Weakening Shroud bums me out too especially after the community had to argue the very same issue last time they wanted to make it a regular Enfeebling Blood.
And the sad thing is, some necros will even consider this a buff.

spoj.9672:

I understand the devs want to use real weapon skills on DS entry so they benefit from weapon skill reduction.

Honestly, I don’t understand this. This might make sense in general but not when skills are already time gated by the cooldown of Death Shroud. You just lose control over your abilities because you won’t be able to tell when the cds is ready.
Also, I’m sure that even if you’ll have Quickening Thirst or Axe Traing (jk, nobody will use them) the average “cooldown” by simply using Death Shroud as usual will be somewhere around 25 seconds anyway.
But if you ever need to go into DS more frequently because you need to defend yourself you’ll not only lose out on the aoe weakness for defense but the actual time passing between procs would probably double to somewhere between 30-60 seconds.

One more idea:

If they merge Greater Marks and Soul Marks the empty spot could be filled by bringing back Decaying Swarm: At 25% health, you become surrounded by a locust swarm.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Decaying_Swarm

Anchoku.8142:

How would you define a power Necro under the new system? Suppose Spite was one trait line you choose because you like the soft CC and damage bonuses. What two other lines would you choose?

You want to give PvE necros the option to trait for full dps. This excludes Death Magic.
Blood Magic has Vampiric traits which do damage, but since healing/life stealing is tied to them they could never exceed pure damage traits. Hence, for PvE builds: Spite, Curses, Soul Reaping, as usual.

For PvP I can see a lot of necros taking Death Magic. Blood Magic however will only ever be viable when the traits actually work with Death Shroud.

Another idea:

Reaper’s Precision is removed, Reaper’s Protection takes it’s place.

This way condi builds could choose between this as a defensive option and Path of Corruption for offense.
Also, it has been pointed out that without a staff (should Greater Marks or a merged Staff Mastery remain there) the Death Magic master tier only provides the choice between Reaper’s Protection and a stat conversion (Deadly Strength).
So with moving RP to Curses you could create a new defensive trait that better matches the Death Magic line or you solve the problem that there is no proper minion trait in DM master tier but Death Nova and Necromantic Corruption are both in gm, so you could move down one of the minion grandmasters and have room for another defensive trait besides Unholy Sanctuary.

djooceboxblast.9876:

• Remove reapers precision

Yes.

djooceboxblast.9876:

• Move parasitic contagion to master

No.
This needs to remain in gm as a defensive option.
Terror needs to be merged into minor or made baseline to give way for a power trait.

djooceboxblast.9876:

• Rename old target the weak and make it a gm trait

Too weak. If this is just copypasted into grandmaster then power builds will basically lose out on a trait compared to now because the crit chance buff in minor is really just a compensation for the loss of the trait line’s stat bonus.
Which is why I made this suggestion earlier:
Target the Weak (as a gm trait instead of Terror): 2% damage for every condition on your target + 50% chance to gain might whenever you inflict a condition (1 stack, 3 sec, no icd).

Imo it’s too early to theorycraft builds. Also, I hope they change some things before they are actually patched in.

@Balekai:
You don’t have 4 options, you’ve picked one of the minor traits everytime.

spoj.9672:

Only problem is both fear traits are essentially partial versions of the same thing. If you dont have curses and you have soul reaping you still get a terror. There are almost always conditions on foes. Dont know how else you would do it other than just moving them all together though.

You wouldn’t pick Master of Terror though if you have Soul Reaping but no Curses.

Edit: perhaps I should’ve phrased it differently. MoT: Terror deals additional dmg for other condis. So MoT alone wouldn’t do any damage of course.

So basically, I wanted to propose a solution that gives more meaningful choices in Curses and somewhat defuses any of the “omg Terror for free”-concerns by not giving it the damage boost for other conditions by default. Then you could pick MoT in SR to get the current version of Terror with a duration boost as an offensive option in the master tier, or go more defensive with Vital Persistance or Spectral Mastery.

So one of my posts was deleted because it responded to another deleted post, but it included another suggestion for Curses:

Curses gm minor:

Terror: fear does damage + 2% crit chance for each condition on your target.

Curses gm:

Lingering Curse: change 100% duration to 30%, but keep the modified base durations for scepter conditions on this trait.

Target the Weak: 2% damage for every condition on your target + 50% chance to gain might whenever you inflict a condition (1 stack, 3 sec, no icd).

Soul Reaping master:

Master of Terror: +50% fear duration + fear deals additional damage if the target is afflicted with another condition.

Death Magic master:

Staff Mastery: merged Greater Marks and mark cd reduction.

I would move a merged staff trait either away from Soul Reaping or at least promote it to SR master tier so it doesn’t overshadow other traits too much.

baseline for marks: 1% life force per hit, instead of a static 3% on trigger to give it a scaling effect in team fights.

Sagat.3285:

1/5 of distinct builds

Terror is not taken by powermancer,MM,siphons build(if they exist),spectral masters it’s only used by terromancers

Oh so you meant to say there are 5 types of builds for the necro?
Well, I could argue that we have even more and vamp builds are not one of them.
And what is a “spectral master”? It’s not like any type of build can’t pick spectral utility skills.

Sagat.3285:

By conditionmancers I see those PvE condition necros they don’t use terror, the lost of Spite’s bonus condition duration affected some variations of Terromancers so that’s why it’s damage should be buffed then the spec as whole can be improved.

Well, in PvE you can use food, it’s very easy to max out bleeding duration this way. So do you really think people will still use Lingering Curse in PvE? Because it will no longer modify your base durations.
Also, if you had to balance Terror for PvE to make condi necros viable then a single tick would have to do 10k dmg.

Sagat.3285:

Terror vs Lingering is a good match up

No.

Sagat.3285:

1/5 of distinct builds

I don’t know what you mean by that.

Gryph.8237:

terrormancer/condi mancer. The difference is the presence of the Master of Terror trait, not Terror itself.

It really isn’t though.
Condi- and Terrormancer are synonymous terms. Condition builds always have Terror, and that makes them “Terrormancers”, that’s all there is to it. The amount of sources of fear or by how much you extend your fear duration is completely irrelevant.

spoj.9672:

Another thing about the curses grandmasters. Its a condi and crit line. But all 3 grandmasters are flat condi traits. They arent related to crit chance at all. We could simply have some kind of on crit trait which benefits both condi and powers. For example might on crit (forceful greatsword style trait but not tied to a specific weapon).

Please and thank you.

Emapudapus.1307:

Or move PC to second tier where …

Sagat.3285:

Could just replace Reaper’s Precision with a weaker version of Parasitic Contagion that works in DS…

Or we could stop bargaining for some lame compromise. Necros are weaker than other classes in so many ways, and whenever there are balance patches they are being discriminated against.
Terror should be base or a minor, any source of healing should go through DS 100%.

Burjis.3087:

You can’t expect Terror + Target the Weak to be merged into a minor trait slot.

Why? Barbed Precision was merged with Hemophilia, just one example of many merged minor traits.

Burjis.3087:

Putting Terror into a minor trait line is logical considering how many traits for other professions have become either baseline or minor because they were always used

If you look at the engi’s Explosives line alone:
Forceful Explosions (+10% damage) is going to be a minor trait.
Increased Bomb radius: baseline.
3rd granade: baseline.
Accelerant Packed Turrets: baseline.
Now, compared to that, can you really justify Terror not getting a similar treatment?

Burjis.3087:

If it’s purely power-based, then it makes it a no brainer for condimancers to not take it and it also feels a bit out of place

No, it wouldn’t be out of place, and condi builds already have 2 condi option besides Terror in the gm slot. An offensive and a defensive one. The third must be a power option because power builds will still take Curses over Death Magic and Blood Magic.

Burjis.3087:

This will give you a choice as a conditionmancer between 3 different approaches:
more damage and condition duration with scepter, more sustain, or more critical chance with debilitating conditions.

Like I said, the Target the Weakness change counteracts the loss of precision stat bonus from the traitline itself, just like Soul Reaping will get +15% life force as a minor in addition to the Strength of Undeath damage bonus. So there’s is no reason why Terror as a minor trait couldn’t be combined with a crit chance buff.

Burjis.3087:

Of course, it doesn’t have to have that long an ICD but it’s just a matter of numerical balancing.

The only way Withering Precision would even be considered over the other gm traits is if it had no icd at all. So that’s never going to happen.
Besides, if you want a lot of weakness you can take the new Toxic Landing (Master of Corruption) and CPC for more than 60% uptime of aoe weakness and poison on a capture point.

CodeHavoc.7926:

If Signet of the Locust is now a Gm trait …
what happens to the 25% additonal run speed?

The trait is Signet Mastery (cd reduction and might on activation), it just procs the active effect of the signet.

Burjis.3087:

As for terror, I don’t agree that Terror can be base-lined but it can very well replace Target the Week as a grandmaster minor trait. Too powerful? It’s just a damage trait, lower its number.
Now, the key point here is that this gives you the option of creating a major grandmaster trait by combining Target the Weak with the now-removed Withering Precision to create a trait that can be useful to all builds and synergizes well with itself:
2% critical chance for each unique condition on the enemy. Apply weakness on critical hits 5 seconds, 20 seconds cooldown.

This solution would only help condi necros though. Power builds would be in the exact same situation with the difference of weakness proc. And btw, Withering Precision is currently the worst trait in the entire Curses line, so adding that doesn’t help at all.
Also, I think the new Target the Weak is a good way to compensate for the loss of the trait line stat bonus.
So if not baseline just merge Terror with the 2% crit chance for each condi and make a new proper power trait in grandmaster.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Suggestion regarding Beyond The Veil: Why not change it to “Nearby allies gain Protection when you leave Death Shroud. 360 radius, no AoE cap.”

This makes it comparable to the Guardian trait Communal Defenses. Your minions will usually be in this range anyway, but now it also allows the Necro to add defensive support to a team. Protection is arguably weaker than Aegis, and despite not including a cooldown, there is a higher cost associated with it for the Necro: namely they are without defense for the next 10/7 seconds.

I agree.

spoj.9672:

The problem is our lines are far too focused on certain builds meaning only one type of build is really suitable for some lines. Looking at the grandmasters its like you have to run minions to use Death magic and you have to be condi to run Curses. This is really bad and is the biggest issue with the proposed changes. None of the other classes have this level of excessive focus on a role per traitline.

I agree.

And since we’re talking about unfair bias against the necro, here’s something I wanted to add in regards to Terror taking up a gm slot:

Devs @ engi’s Grenadier trait (3rd granade becomes default):
“It makes no sense that there was a trait that gives a 50% damage boost on granades.
And it’s the one that everyone always took, so there was no reason to withhold that and we wanted to give you more meaningful choices.”

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Almost nothing is changing for condi necromancer. You can still spec into Curses for both PoC and Terror…

You say that like it’s a good thing. But the current condi necro meta builds are inherently flawed and highly depend on being carried by a strong team, and even then necros are more of a liability to them than other classes.

What happend in the preview is really just Anet teasing us with:
“Hey guys, look! Some nice new Curses grandmaster traits that would go really well with condition builds. Sucks you can’t use them because Terror is blocking that spot! lol :P "

If it stays like this Parasitic Contagion and Lingering Curse will take a back seat to Terror in PvP, and in PvE it will be a net nerf because there you can easily max bleeding duration with food anyway but you’ll no longer have extended base durations on scepter conditions.

runeblade.7514:

flow.6043:

Girion.5483:

Which condition spec runs warhorn?

Many.

How many is “Many”?

I see only the WvW Condi necro roamer that uses it as a alternative option.

sPvP Condi necro don’t use it.

Well I use it, for one. But I do occasionally see other condi necros with warhorn in sPvP.

When you think about it, dagger offhand is really just thought of the go-to choice for condition builds because there are 2 stacks of bleeding on a 25 sec cd skill, Enfeebling Blood. But the utility of a condi cleanse and even the aoe weakness makes it just as much a viable choice for power builds.
Same can be argued for the warhorn, it’s just an all around good weapon. So if you can spare the condion transfer there is no reason not to take the aoe daze and excellent lf regen over the blindness and weakness of the dagger.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Roe.3679:

- I think Path of Corruption and terror should be reversed, putting Terror and Lingering curses on the same GM level hurt a lot of PVE necromancers (although for pvp, for example, it didn’t change anything so I missed this).

This has been mentioned by a few players, and honestly, I can’t imagine this ever happening. Imagine if Doom, Fear (necro downstate) and Reaper’s Protection was a 4s fear and Fear of Death, Spectral Wall, Corrupt Boon and Well of Corruption were 2s fears with terror! That sounds just awful to play against. I’m not totally sure why everyone is underestimating the potency of the new scepter trait.

Doom would be 3 sec max. The rest isn’t that much more than what you can currently get with Nightmare runes and Master of Terror, you can get +95% if you have 6 points in Spite in addition to that. And that includes fear skills and procs when you’re on your staff as well.

Also, if you combine all these skills (which you never would because that looks like a terrible build) you’d pretty much get something similar to a warrior’s hammer stun rotation, only with less damage and with more counter play since fear is a condition.

So to me it seems, if anything, the duration buff of Lingering Curse should be looked at instead of making people choose between Terror and any of the grandmaster or master traits which could actually make condi necros decent for a change.

PS: Thanks for doing all of this though, Gates. Get well

Urug.2543:

I was on a roll today, and made some suggestions (in a format easier to digest than huge blocks of text). Tell me- is this a Necromancer you would be excited to play? (And suggest new Grandmasters, there are 3 empty slots…)

Yes and no.
Most of it seems to be an improvment over anet’s preview of course.
Just a few of the things that cought my eye in a negative way:

Terror in master tier is just as bad as in grandmaster. It would basically mean that you can’t have Path of Corruption or Banshee’s Wail with a condi build anymore.

Greater Marks is gone? Or did you mean to merge it with Soul Marks?

Bloodmagic: even if Vampiric is as poor as it is now, I wouldn’t change its functionality completely because the trait itself isn’t bad, it’s the fact that the values are low in addition to not working at all when in DS.
Also, your Coven gm minor seems redundant when you need to get the entire line anyway.

Urug.2543:

Personally, I agree that 100% would probably be fine, but I figured that people might need to be eased into it

I get that, but the game is almost 3 years old and by now I don’t want to ease anyone into something that should’ve happened a long time ago.
Also, with the time it takes anet to implement changes I’d rather get straight to full healing instead of waiting another 3 years for that to happen.

Urug.2543:

With this in mind, I think that the developers should seriously consider the following:

Enable healing in Death Shroud at 50% effectiveness-

I fixed that for you.

Seriously though, I know there are people who think full healing would be too strong but they are wrong.
Keep in mind, other classes have better defensive mechanics that scale a lot better in team fights but they are the ones who can get ally healing at all times in addition to that.
So if anything, ally healing through DS should be 50% more effective on necros because they need it the most.

Girion.5483:

Which condition spec runs warhorn?

Many.

Girion.5483:

from a PvE perspective, warhorn is a great offhand

Which is why it shouldn’t be in Death Magic.
Besides, warhorn is a great offhand weapon regardless of game mode or build.

Girion.5483:

All the staff marks deal with conditions, so you might as well want to put the corresponding trait into the conditon specialization.

That’s kind of a far stretch. You might as well argue that Banshee’s Wail gives you a lot of cripple which provides syngery with Target the Weak and lf regen grants you access to the conditions from DS skills.
And if you really want to make a connection to its life force regeneration then it should actually be in Soul Reaping.

By the way, it has already been suggested by many that Greater Marks and Soul Marks/Staff Mastery should be merged into one trait with the upcoming changes.

Gryph.8237:

Why does a trait that has always been a master trait get bumped up to grandmaster without a buff?

Actually it used to be an adept trait originally.

But keep in mind, with the new trait system you can no longer assume adept<master<grandmaster because you are getting the entire traitline anyway.
It’s going to be a matter of what 3 traits you have to choose from at each tier. And imo Terror does belong in Curses, but it would block essential traits in each tier for any proper condi build. Therefore: baseline or merge with minor.

Emapudapus.1307:

The problem now is that ds 1 and staff 1 doesnt benefit condi necros with dmging condis. With dhuumfire change you actualy get viable ds 1 condi autoattack.

But would you pick this version of Dhuumfire over Foot in the Grave or Deathly Perception?

runeblade.7514:

I don’t see whats wrong with terror competing with Lingering curse. ANet wants to create choices. Stronger condi pressure vs stronger fear pressure.

Terror = stonger condi pressure.
And having Terror in the gm or master slot will limit choices that actually matter: Lingering Curse vs Parasitic Contagion.
Path of Corruption vs Banshee’s Wail vs X (hopefully something more useful than Reaper’s Precision).

Also, there’s the matter of Terror blocking a spot for a proper power trait.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

parasitic contagion should have stayed in spite, or moved to the sustain line as well. It is another completely useless GM trait. It will never be picked over lingering curses.

I disagree, for 2 reasons:
With the buffed healing percentage (and maybe with healing working through DS someday) it’s actually a decent sustain trait.
Also, there are some hybrid builds that don’t use a scepter at all. So for them there should also be a choice of Parasitic Contagion vs power grandmaster trait as a defensive vs offensive option.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Heh, I have a word doc where I’m making my own Blood Magic line and in that I created a minor trait that reads “Life stealing while in death shroud restores your normal health”.

While I’m sure many of us can appreciate that sentiment, a solution for only Life Stealing through DS could create its own set of proplems.

1. First of all, what is Life Stealing? Just vampiric traits or would that include Sigil of Leeching and Blood, runes with life steal procs, food with leech effects? Does it include the Signet of Locust proc from the new Spite gm Signet Mastery?

2. If you allow vampiric traits to work through Death Shroud it only seems reasonable to extend the same privilege of not conflicting with our core defense to healing traits that are not in Blood Magic: Spiteful Renewal, Signet Mastery, Parasitic Contagion.

3. And then there are some additional Blood Magic traits, non-siphon but still healing traits that will partially be lost because of the time you spend in DS:
- Regeneration Boon on Full of Life and Mark of Evasion.
- Transfusion and Deathly Invigoration.
- Ritual of Life: Since interaction in DS was made possible it is common practice to stomp and rez people in DS. This new version of Ritual of Life is actually really good, but ulitmately you’re faced with the choice of rezzing in DS (which is generally preferable because we have better access to lf regen than regular healing) or getting healed by Well of Blood but being exposed to damage at the same time.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

I’m a bit confused about one point that keeps coming up. Why is Terror “necessary”? Clearly, terror is in every single condition build right now and for good reason. It does a ton of damage and it’s really the only reason those build work. That said, what if I made a trait competing with Terror that said something like “All Death Shroud skills cause 10s of 3 stacks of bleeding every hit.” Terror doesn’t look so necessary anymore right? So why not suggestion some condi trait to fill that slot that can compete with terror instead of making terror baseline, thus removing any possibility of a good condi trait in curses?

But the proposed versions of Lingering Curse and Parasitic Contagion seem to be good condi options already, and they do compete with Terror in that slot.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Another thing is that a lot of people are saying that there needs to be some sort of power trait in curses. Why does it have to be curses?

Well, two things to note here.
1. Since you’ll have to pick entire trait lines instead of being able to spec half way into them, they should all have options that are viable for all types of builds.
2. Curses will be picked for power builds either way because of the other traits in this line.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Why not some sort of vampiric set of traits in blood magic? Something crazy like Dark Path steals 1,500 health (doubled if from behind). I’ve always wanted to be a vampire necromancer! Think crazy and fun guys.

Yes that would be nice… if any kind of healing actually worked in Death Shroud, which it should, but it doesn’t.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Sagat.3285:

Let signet’s passive work in DS

I read this and immediately said “No…It can’t be…They have to work in DS…” Tried it. Wow. Signets don’t work in DS.

Haha, it’s fun when an outsider comes to the necro forum and discovers some of the 3 year old skeletons in our basement.

The Gates Assassin.9827:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Death Magic

Soul Comprehension: Honestly, this trait really feels like a waste of a slot. It’s not technically terrible, but the vast majority of life force gains are not from deaths. It’s effect is so minor, it might account for half a percent of total life force gain. I’m betting even less. Either add something to it, or replace it. It is just sooooo inconsequential that if it stopped working, nobody would notice.

I just ran the numbers on this bit here:

On death, you gain about 9% death shroud (it’s a percentage, not a static number). This trait increases this 9% by 20%, thus making it 1.8% more death shroud per death. A single staff auto attack outdoes this trait…by more than double!

It’s actually 10% lf per death, so with Soul Comprehension and Gluttony (SR minor with +10% better lf regen to all sources!) you can sqeeze out an amazing 13.2%. lol

When the devs started necro with saying: we want to get rid of on-death traits because they aren’t useful in actual combat…
I was thinking “aaaw yiss, good bye Soul Comprehension!”
Devs: Soul Comprehension… unchanged, it’s the necros, they need at least one death trait. -_-

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Axe Training: My god, why was this nerfed? Half the builds that currently use Axe don’t even take the trait as it is on live! I cannot fathom the thought process here.
“Hey guys, this trait is never taken. Let’s nerf and pretend we’re creative!” No. Just no. The damage boost, if it is going to be tied to Cripple, either needs to apply to all damage the necro deals or be massively buffed. On top of that, the cooldown reduction is a flat nerf. It’s the same number of auto attacks as it is now between Ghastly Claws casts when traited, but now those autos are necessary for that timing. Horrid, horrid nerf to an already weak trait.

As one of the few axe + Axe Training users, this really is a weird change and a nerf.
I don’t mind the concept of it that much, but yeah, you basically have to constantly auto-attack in between Ghastly Claws to get the same cd reduction as now. And the AA of axe is really just something you do when you have to because everything else is on cooldown.

I suspect that they looked at the new grandmaster trait Spiteful Spirit, and thought of how low the icd could get with Axe Training and perma AA. However, in a real fight you might shave ~1 sec off its cd before you switch weapons or go into Death Shroud.

I like your +damage to all sources idea though.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Terror: This is not strong enough for Grandmaster status as it is. As such, it is the best candidate to remove from the slot and replace with a trait for non-condition damage builds in this slot. My suggestion is to merge it with Master of Terror and move Master of Terror up to Grandmaster in Soul Reaping.

I would agree if it didn’t force every condition build into Soul Reaping.

How about this though:
- Terror becomes baseline or added to one of the minor traits in Curses, but the extra damage for a pre-existing condition on your target is removed.
- Master of Terror gets the +damage for extra condition buff.
- New gm trait for power builds in Curses.

OlliX.1705:

Get rid of Soul Marks, add cooldown reduction to Greater Marks. Make 3% life force on mark trigger default staff behaviour.

Interesting idea, and a good one.

That is very nice to hear, thx for doing this!

Please add these two threads

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Terror-should-become-baseline/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Changes-to-Staff-Mastery/

The Gates Assassin.9827:

There’s a lot of builds that almost exist in blood and death magic, but they just don’t work. It feels like there’s a lack of clear vision in those two trait lines.

I think most of the complaints regarding those two lines, especially Blood Magic, aren’t really related to the trait changes directly.
Blood Magic traits, like some of the traits in Spite and Parasitic Contagion in Curses, even the newest addition to our healing skills (Vamp Signet), simply doesn’t work well because no healing works through Death Shroud.
There have been countless threads (one of the most recent ones) supporting all sources of healing to actually work with our core defensive mechanic. This has to be implemented first before any attempt of balancing vamp traits can be made.

Ah sorry, I misread.
Still, I don’t think Terror should have to compete with any of the proposed traits in Curses. I’d rather have it do less damage as a minor or baseline trait than being forced to simply ignore any of the others.

Bhawb.7408:

I’d really like for it to merge into Soul Reaping, and give Death Magic a real defensive trait at the Master tier. While Reaper’s Protection is fine, if you don’t run staff you’re faced with either a stat conversion or RP.

Good point.

MethaneGas.8357:

If it merges into Death Magic Master, that would be fine and would be a natural choice. It would also be a good choice if it went into Grandmaster tier in Death Magic too, and Unholy Sanctuary moved down to Master or something.

Like Bhawb pointed out, since you have to take the entire line this would be more of a question of what other traits you pair them with. Because a non-MM with a staff will have to take Unholy Sanctuary over the minion traits anyway, so US and GM switching places would really mean that you can chose between Reaper’s Protection and Unholy Sanctuary.

MethaneGas.8357:

If it merges into Soul Reaping… it likely won’t be as an Adept tier (although that would be awesome). If it’s Master tier, the choice between that and Spectral Attunement would be horrible imo. If spectral Attunement moved down to Adept, then that would be fine.

I take it you mean a positive “horrible”, as in, both traits are good and you can’t decide easily? That’d be good imo.
I think having both of those traits would overshadow all other options too much, perhaps they do so already even without the addition of Greater Marks?
That’s why I suggested a merged staff trait would switch places with Master of Terror.

MethaneGas.8357:

What would you choose as a staff Necro if you don’t go with Death and Soul Reaping though?

In my current build I use staff – axe/warhorn with all respective weapon traits. Soul Marks was never that appealing to me because my life force regen is very solid.
So unless we get a merged staff trait, after the patch those 4 traits will be in 4 different lines, which means I can’t have them all.
Curses is too good to give up, so it’s really any combination of Spite – DM – SR that I’d have to worry about.
Personally, the new Spite line looks most appealing, but then I’d cripple the staff.
Soul Reaping is easily a better trait line than Death Magic, but Greater Marks is more valuable than the mark cd reductions.
In short: the struggle is real! I have no idea what I’d do -_-

Bhawb.7408:

The problem with getting Terror as base, or even as a different tier to Lingering Curse, is the ability for Lingering Curse to double the duration of all non-staff fears (assuming it works in DS for Doom as well). This takes Terror from being a burst threat, to being a sustained damage threat that still deals burst-damage levels of DPS.

The stun duration would be more of an issue than the actual damage from Terror. Like others have pointed out, a simple auto attack of zerker classes will easily outdamage fear ticks.

Also, like they said on stream, the numbers can be altered most easily. And I really don’t think +100% duration for every condition is appropriate. It’s too big on its own and it will conflict with other duration increases if the 100% cap still exists. So I’m pretty sure this number will be much lower when the patch is released.

Sagat.3285:

Why 100% in the first place? Make it reduce recharge on scepter skills by 20%,grant 150 condition damage to you and allies 600 radius,outgoing condition duration is increased by 33%,increase damage of terror by 15% don’t make it baseline, move Parasitic Contagion to master change to 5-7% allow heal in DS it replaces useless Reaper’s Precision, New GM power trait increase crit damage for each condition on foe 3% per condition.

That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. So your master tier would be: Path of Corruption – Banshee’s Wail – Parasitic Contagion, and gm: Terror – Lingering Curse – stronger version of Target the Weak. You’d have no gm minor trait, and Terror is not baseline or merged into one of the Curses minor traits?

Also, I think the proposed master traits are well placed. It’s a trait for warhorn users and a defensive or offensive trait for other builds. The gm tier should follow a similar pattern: offense vs defense (Lingering Curse vs Parasitic Contagion) and an additional trait for power builds.

Oh right, I forgot about Toxic Landing. Well, I’m sure coming up with a replacement trait is the smallest problem here.

Brujeria.7536:

Would be a solution. I think fear shouldnt deal so much damage though, i dislike the idea that terror makes fear kinda bursty. So yeah, terror is baseline, terror damage reduced by 33%,; fear skills should have their CD reduced, making them more of a defensive option with interrupting while adding a little bit of damage to it.

I’d be ok with that, although Terror really doesn’t deal that much damage to begin with.

Brujeria.7536:

This would also open a slot for traits that alter conditions like ranger and thief can alter poison. I would love a trait that modifies chill or cripple or poison or weakness.

Like I said, the biggest issue with Curses in the preview was that there is no power grandmaster trait even though power builds will definitely take this trait line over Death or Blood Magic (for PvE at least).

The new Staff Mastery will be merged with Soul Marks as a Soul Reaping adept trait.
Generally a decent change, but why is Greater Marks still going to be in Death Magic?

They obviously tried to streamline some things, but this split is horrible.

If you really want to make “one staff trait” then please make just one, this way you have 2 extremely valuable staff traits in 2 different trait lines. And it’s not like you’ll be able to spend points half way into a trait line anymore to get them both. No, you’ll have to actually pick both the complete Death Magic AND Soul Reaping trait line just to make your staff be as powerful as you can currently have it with 4 trait points.

Basically, if you want unblockable marks with reduced cooldowns you’ll be extremely limited since you’re giving up 2/3 trait line options just for that.
This will not only break my build, but imo it’s generally unacceptible and too big of an imposition on every staff user.

Proposed solution:

1. Merge all staff traits into the Greater Marks slot in Death Magic.
Add Master of Corruption (i think they dropped it completely?) to adept Soul Reaping instead.

or:

2. Merge them all in Soul Reaping as a master tier trait instead of Master of Terror.
MoT would become adept.

Let’s review what the devs said about Terror:

“If you take Terror you’re building a Terrormancer (…) and because it’s build defining we want it to be recognized as such”

@Lingering Curse: “…if you wanna be condi, this is the one you want to take!”

Just to clarify, there is no such thing as a “Terrormancer”.
The only question is: do you play condi? If yes, you have Terror… the end!
This trait is in no way build-defining, it’s just a trait that slightly buffs damage for a build type that – even with the trait – has subpar damage to power builds in both PvP and PvE.

So what would it mean if this trait was made baseline for all necros (or at least merged with a minor trait in Curses):

1. Condition builds would have the choice between a defensive and an offensive trait: Parasitic Contagion vs Lingering Curse.
This is how it should be, extended durations or more sustain.

2. There would be a vacancy in the Curses grandmaster tier.
One of the biggest complaints about the new traits so far: There is no power gm trait in Curses.
Seriously, this is a big problem. Power builds will still pick this line for fury, Banshee’s wail, crit chance and probably Enfeebling Blood. But what the hell are they supposed to do with the gm slot? Conditions heal you? A scepter trait? Or terror… for a build that does very low condition damage?
But if Terror was baseline it would give power builds a negligable damage buff while having an actual power option in the gm tier.
For example: the current form of Target the Weak. So this way a power build could get both more damage and more crit chance for conditions on a target.

Thoughts?

Muchacho.2390:

Lordrosicky.5813:

dood.7526:

Dhuumfire is exciting.

Blood magic still sucks. Much more conflicting with DS now since deathly invigoration heals when you enter so you receive no benefit from it.

I can’t wait for that grandmaster deathly invigoration trait. Healing my team mates (only the ones right next to me) for 360. Wow. That is incredible. 1 auto attack and air sigil proc will be doing 5k on them but ill pump out those 300 HP heals (not for me).
.

Well they did say that they want to increase the healing massively but since it doesnt heal the necro anymore i find it rather kitten even with higher numbers…

Or, you know… they could just do the most obvious and logical thing: healing in DS.

I know, I meant what happens to the duration increase of it when you max it out with scepter anyway?

Also, that explanation is bull. Who would go into Blood Magic to get a miniscule cd reduction on Weakening Shroud? This trait should stay as it is, end of story.

Lily.1935:

Without the trait bonus that we get from Spite before, which was 30%, this really isn’t as big of a change as you think. Before we had a flat 63% while using it. This is really only a 27% buff to duration. Not as impressive as you think. But we also lose allot of condi duration if we don’t. A flat 30% loss just from the changes.

First of all, you are implying that the current Lingering Curse increases condi duration by 33%. This is false. It modifies the scepter’s base durations by various amounts, non of which by 33%, and those can again be increased by real duration increases.

Also, I really don’t think this trait will straight up max out every condition duration. What happens to Hemophilia? Or food or other duration increases? Do they all just stop working when you have a scepter? Or will the duration cap be increased beyond 100%? In which case: wtf scepter+LC op! So again, I think this must’ve been a typo or something…

And what do you guys think of Weakening Shroud? I don’t understand why they would change it like this when we specifically (and successfully) argued against a full 25 sec cd Enfeebling Blood the last time they tried to implement it this way.

Bhawb.7408:

Scepter having 100% condition duration to all outgoing conditions while equipped.

I saw that too but I honestly can’t imagine that there really will be a single trait that instantly maxes out every condi duration, even if you can’t have Terror at the same time.

I guess it’s too early to tell how good or bad those changes are going to be but my first impression was: meh…

CommunityScabies.2587:

You can give yourself Chaos Armor by planting a Spectral Wall on top of someone then hitting them with Putrid Mark. This is however very difficult to manage as it requires a lot of things to be just right. You and your target essentially need to be standing INSIDE the Spectral Wall and Putrid Mark needs to hit your target to blast the wall…

False.
Putrid Mark triggers its blast finisher when the center of the mark was placed on a combo field. The blast area will be the entire trigger radius of the mark, which has 60 units more than the regular radius.
That means nobody needs to stand in the wall. The only thing that needs to happen is you standing on Putrid Mark or within 60 range close to the edge of the mark when it is triggered while the center of it is on a combo field.

It could also mean we’re getting additional DS skills that actually cost life force beyond natural degeneration. Would be nice to have a healing skill in DS for example.

Dawdler.8521:

If you want even more versatile, always go with zerker+traveler for armor. You are already using various different trinket/weapon pieces, its better to “balance” the stats there.

The stats look pretty balanced to me as they are, I wouldn’t touch them.

The only thing I’d change personally is Staff Mastery instead of Shrouded Removal or maybe even move the 2 points to Soul Reaping, but overall the build looks solid.

#HybridNecroNewMeta2015

AsiraasiB.7165:

I don’t see how celestial stats would hurt blood magic trait line.

You misunderstood.
I wasn’t talking about a synergy between Blood Magic traits and celestial but either one with the necro class. But now that you mention it, they don’t hurt each other but there’s almost no synergy between them either. Vampiric traits do scale with power and healing power but it’s negligable to the point where you wouldn’t notice a difference if you were using any other amulet.

AsiraasiB.7165:

The whole point of this build is to out heal your opponent while doing damage via direct and some condi..

One might think you’re talking about an ele or engi. It just doesn’t work this way for necros.

AsiraasiB.7165:

The signet of vamp is great for 1v1 or team fights

Vamp Signet is great for nothing. It’s bad as it is but like Vampiric traits it doesn’t even work half the time when you’re in Death Shroud.

AsiraasiB.7165:

So what’s wrong with my build in your opinion

You’re not doing enough damage and your defense is weak. You can’t sustain yourself with vamp traits especially when you don’t have a single cleanse or stunbreak.

AsiraasiB.7165:

And when I say I haven’t lost a 1v1 in spvp or ranked I mean it. .. No reason to lie or exaggerate….

If you’re on EU I’ll gladly have a little sparring session with you.

akaCryptic.2389:

DS2 is mostly unreliable due to obstruction and its speed. People can just strafe and avoid it, it’s horrible.

It’s homing, you can’t strafe to avoid it.

Harvest.2506:

I think i didn’t prematurelly use my marks like i have been when i was new to the class.

You did actually ;P
And sometimes you didn’t when you should have. In general you need to pay more attention to your opponents and play reactively rather than just doing certain sets of skill rotations.

Nemesis.8593:

Judging by the amount of times i got called “OP noob / kittening scrub OP necro” Not many people get it…

Honestly, in 2.5 years I’ve heard this less than 5 times. I mean, some people always rage about conditions op or whatever, and in PvP you get called PvE-scrub 100 times a day, but I’ve very rarely heard an insult like being a noob who is carried by the class.

Nemesis.8593:

But yeah you will generate that life force… in 5 seconds…
Once every 40 seconds, if you have a warhorn, if you went in with 0 life force so you can actually store it, if people stay in it and don’t… idk perma evade @ that thief which crushed me in 1v1s…

The well has a 40 sec cd, on the other hand Locust Swarm combined with Banshee’s Wail can reach more than 60% uptime. And combining those two skills for an on-point lf regen burst will usually mean that you’re anticipating incoming damage from several sources. So you’re probably going to spend those 5 sec in DS anyway, which means that you’re not overcharging your lf pool even if you start out with more than zero.
If you encounter a mobile class like an s/d thief in 1v1 then of course it won’t generate that much life force. Then again, there are classes like turret engis, mesmers or spirit rangers that will make those skills realize most of their potential just by themselves. That and using them to generate a lot of life force in team fights is not at all an outlier scenario.

Nemesis.8593:

Vital Persistance doesn’t give you much of an edge in PvP

I just mentioned it in context of buffs to DS and lf regen because you didn’t in the video. Vital Persistance used to be 3% natural degen, now it’s 2%.

Nemesis.8593:

Weakening Shroud ICD as far as i remember was 15 sec, and the DS mechanic has 10 sec cd, maybe i remember it wrong… but it was definitely not a buff. Before the NERF every single necro used Weakening Shroud, after… no one uses it… why is that ?

A lot of people use it, I’m one of them.
Imo it’s the best adept trait in Curses for both power and condi builds.
The weakness duration could be 3 sec instead of 2 sec, but still, if I had the choice to keep this or go back to the old Weakening Shroud I’d keep the one with the lower cd.

Nemesis.8593:

Locust Swarm and Spectral Wall does not compensate for the lack of dissangage and does not make you an attrition class

I never said those skills make us an attrition class. In the video you say that we have no skills that scale with increasing numbers of opponents which simply is not true.

Nemesis.8593:

Yeah… life force generation IS stronger… for 1v1s…

Not true. Like I said, all lf regen was buffed, that includes Locust Swarm, Necrotic Grasp and the addition of WoC. They all regen life force per hit for up to 5 targets.
If you have an active Locust Swarm and then drop Well of Corruption on a point with 5 targets you will generate 90% life force in 5 seconds, 99% with Gluttony.
I know it doesn’t scale like blocks or invulnerability but it’s still not bad at all.

Nemesis.8593:

People still don’t get that if you lose to a necromancer in 1v1, with all your evades and blocks and mist forms… doesn’t mean that necromancer fairs the same in a focus fire scenario.

Everyone gets it since 2012.
The “target necro first” mentality has never changed. Also, necros aren’t the 1v1 machines they used to be a long time ago. Today there are a lot of builds on all other classes that makes a duel with them an uphill battle for the necro.

I laughed during the part about the Flesh Golem, also I cried because it’s true, that lazy bum is collecting unemployent.

As for the rest, nothing of it was news, not to the players and I’m sure by now not even to anet.
Also, there were a lot of false/incomplete facts about the history of buffs and nerfs, Death Shroud and life force regeneration. For example Vital Persistance wasn’t mentioned, Weakening Shroud being nerfed when the removal of the icd was actually a buff overall, and we actually do have lf generators that scale with multiple opponents: Locust Swarm, Well of Corruption and Spectral Wall. For regular healing the freshly buffed but still not viable Signet of the Locust. And of course we have several aoe skills that inflict fear, weakness, chilled or blindness, so to some extent those are too defensive mechanics that scale with multiple opponents.
And DS being weaker now than it was at release is completely wrong. Life force regen was buffed across the board, so were several traits that interact with DS, the UI has seen several very useful improvments over time, almost 2 years ago we got that 50% damage reduction bug so our pool was effectively doubled, we got Tainted Shackles, and we can now rez and stomp in DS. The Shroud back at release was nothing compared to what is is now.

Here is your build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRAQRBHhhuxJNi0YjV2gvNmoWQm+50mQGJAlhTD-TJhHwAAeCABOJAw2fwYZAA

So you have combined two of the things that provide the least amount of synergy with the necro: the Blood Magic trait line and celestial stats.
Also, no stunbreak and not a single cleanse.
Let me put it this way, there is absolutely no way that you’ve never lost a 1v1.

I’ve seen a lot of power necros too. But I honestly think condi is better for taking care of npcs on this map. They don’t cleanse or heal themselves so for the most part their only protection is other players peeling for them. Which means that with a condi build you’re less reliant on daggering them down up close like you would in PvE. And you’re not really pressed for speed killing them either unless they are attacking a gate.