Guild Wars 2

Oblivion.8307:

it’s about what’s over the top in strength right now in pvp balance.

Mark of Blood? really??

Brett.4305:

Can someone please explain it’s original state?

Duration used to be 4 sec, now it’s 2 sec in sPvP and 4 sec in PvE/WvW.

Rennoko.5731:

It is just so obvious to me that if you start scaling siphons at 3-5% healing power and then work your way up if it is needed to find the right balance. I get tired of the argument of 5 targets vs. 1 target and balancing. If there are 5 people, that is 5 times the damage that can be direct at you, should siphon not be 5 times as effective (as it currently is today)?

Exactly, I don’t know what anet is so afraid of, if I get attacked by 5 targets then a full Life Transfer (if healing worked in DS) would generate less than 2k hp. How is this a big deal?

I believe we should get more scaling for general healing and life force regeneration anyway, not just siphoning.
It’s so weird that the only class that has to rely on health, and health alone as a defensive mechanism, has the worst healing. Siphoning traits are heavily restricted atm, and other then those the only skills that scale mit multiple targets are: Locust Swarm, Necrotic Grasp, Feast (underwater) and the active of Locust Signet.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

Drop marks 2-4 on yourself, wait for the stab,..

…is a good way to waste Chillblains and Putrid Mark. If thieves see you standing on a mark they will always dodge through it first before attacking you, so at best Mark of Blood alone can serve as an early warning system.
I’m not against precasting marks, but you shouldn’t stack them, spread them out instead for area controll. Or save Putrid for the blast finisher, an extra combo blindness or weakness can make a big difference.

romsea.8539:

Props to Scnd, best guild around imo, group tactic and mouvement, individual skill, everything is top notch. Gear well not so tough but i’ve seen some pretty good things from you guys too!

I agree. (kodash here)
I was very impressed with those two guilds, even more so after a week against SFR (their 1000 man zergs will not once shy away from taking a huge detour just to hunt down a single uplvld player).
In that sense Scnd not only demonstrated battlefield ethics, but how effective an organized group can be. Well played.

Kitedyou.1720:

However, the problem is when someone, like myself, is running 100% cond. duration and gets 6 seconds of weakness AND specs into Closer to Death (which I don’t use and likely wouldn’t even if this change went through). That is near 86% up time. The better thing to do, I think, would be to put an ICD of 10 seconds on it. This would allow the max up time to be only 60%.

Those uptime numbers are only possible if you double tap F1, that means you wouldn’t use DS at all just to get the shortest possible cooldown for Weakening Shroud.

Kitedyou.1720:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

Not a fan of this change, because it makes you have to go into DS, wait 1 second for LB to fire, …

That would be the point.

Kitedyou.1720:

…then flash back out of DS and wait 1 second before you can use any abilities again.

If you’re refering to the bug that locks your skills: this only happens if you didn’t exit DS by yourself, as in: your lf runs out or you take too much damage.

Kitedyou.1720:

The way Dhuumfire is right now is best because doesn’t it fire off no matter how you are hitting?

If by “best” you mean easiest to apply, then yes…

And I gotta defend CHIPS here, the minority are definitely the Dhuumfire proponents.

Brigg.3961:

My normal wvw utilities are epidemic, corrupt boon, and spectral wall… I definitely see where I can make improvements there. I run terror, so I’d like to keep spectral wall, but what would you suggest for the other two? normally I don’t have a lot of issues with the condi thieves. It’s the bursters that do me in.

Well, most thieves don’t get many boons, so if you see just one thief approaching you then there’s no harm in switching Corrupt Boon out. Same for Epidemic of course, that won’t do anything against a single opponent.
Spectrals is definitely a good way to go against thieves, Spectral Attunement helps a little to keep up with the attrition style of thieves. Also, a pretty good combo is Grasp and Wall because you get an extra interrupt and chill, plus you can try to pull your opponent through the wall with it rather than hoping he’ll run into it by himself.
Well of Darkness is also a pretty good choice against almost all thief builds.

ManaCraft.5630:

I imagine dodging life blast can be tricky if you’re feared though. :-p

Sure, but it would require you to sync up 2 skills, as it is now Doom itself has a pretty good chance to inflict burning.
And keep in mind, for this to happen you not only need to hit your target with Life Blast but there is the icd of the trait, the Death Shroud cooldown and the requirement of having enough life force to go into DS at all. So even if it gives you the occasional strong condi burst, it will probably be less often but at the same time more rewarding. And from an opponents perspective, I’d much rather lose to someone who pulls that off than to someone who uses a passive and longer burning proc every 10 sec.

aspirine.6852:

I dont think I have won any of them against these perplexity spamming pistol thiefs.

If you know you’re going to fight a perplexity user, you should slot Plague Signet. It’s a total hard counter to that rune and will give you an easy win.

@Brigg: picking the right utilities is half the battle, may I ask which ones you’re picking against thieves?

lol yeah, Artillery Barrage is the worst, not just for necros.
It’s a much weaker version of Meteor Shower, it deals fiewer hits with less damage, at a much shorter range, but it’s an elite skill with a 4 min cooldown!

Avigrus.2871:

Forsaker.9213:

ManaCraft.5630:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

So what happens when you put two and two together? Does this actually reduce the burst of the condi necro, or do you merely end up with a rotation that goes Signet of Spite -> Doom -> Life Blast? What does your internal testing tell you?

If the goal is to promote interesting gameplay for the condi necro, you need to reduce the burst to a level where attempting to put the opponent in an unrecoverable position immediately by unloading everything right away is no longer the default option. The condi necro needs less burst and more slower acting damage to incentivize strategic gameplay.

Yes u are right and i agree 100% but u forgot smt , he also need some more sustain , becouse if we gonna lower the dmg and amout of condis that we can stack , ppl will just run over us , and for example AR engi trait , this one trait will counter whole condi build on necro what is OP , i dont mind some counter traits/skills but this is hard counter. The only thing that keep us alive atm is that we can condi burst someone , ofc its not good for the balance so devs need to figure out how to improve our sustain also.

Yeah, you are right – all well and good making our damage act more slowly, but we will need good sustain if that is going to be the case otherwise we will simply be out DPSd and be dead.

First of all: necros don’t get out DPSd even without burning.

Also, we need more sustain either way, but that is a seperate issue and absolutely not related to the existence of Dhuumfire.

ManaCraft.5630:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

JonathanSharp.7094:

We also like the idea of making Terror scale with # of conditions on your target, so there’s more “play” to trying to load your target up with a lot of condies before you hit them with Fear. Your opponent can try to keep condies low, so that Terror won’t hurt as much.

So what happens when you put two and two together? Does this actually reduce the burst of the condi necro, or do you merely end up with a rotation that goes Signet of Spite -> Doom -> Life Blast? What does your internal testing tell you?

If the goal is to promote interesting gameplay for the condi necro, you need to reduce the burst to a level where attempting to put the opponent in an unrecoverable position immediately by unloading everything right away is no longer the default option. The condi necro needs less burst and more slower acting damage to incentivize strategic gameplay.

Signet -> Doom -> Life Blast with 2 sec burning.
That would be some bleeding, poison, 2 ticks of fear and 3 (?) ticks of burning. How is this a burst? That combo wouldn’t kill anybody.

Also, Life Blast can be avoided. It has a 1 sec channeling time and a visible projectile that has a considerable traveleling time at long range. And it would be just this one skill! Dhuumfire in its current state can be triggered by everything. The difference would be huge, in a positive way.

Imo if this change would be implemented you’d not only fix all the problems that Dhuumfire caused in the first place, but Life Blast would be more accessible for condition builds too. It’s a total win-win for everyone.
Plus, it could be moved to Spite master tier (yes I believe such a trait should still be in this line) to defuse the obligatory +30% duration that comes with current meta condi builds by default. Which would also make room for another Spite grandmaster trait besides Close to Death.

Nagato no Kami.4980:

I see a lot of people want this moved to Adept minor but I think this is a reflection of how useful it is rather than it being objectively worth a lowly five points.

True. I’d also be kind of hesitant to make necros even more resistant to conditions by a default trait than they are already.

Imo the new minor traits should reflect that Death Magic is both a defensive line and also increases boon duration. So a way to get protection seems like a perfect match.

I made this suggestion in a different thread already, since it got upvoted there I’ll say it here again:
The master minor could be a variation of Siphoned Power that gives you protection on hit when you’re low on hp.
Something like 2 sec of protection when hit under 25% hp, no icd.

Bhawb.7408:

ThanatosAngel.8024:

JonPeters.5630:

“Could you not combine Protection of the Horde with Flesh Of The Master?” -Scarran

We could but I think that would be a wildly OP Master trait…

Then how about combining it with Minion Mastery instead and bump it up to Master? Combine Reanimator with Flesh of the Master and have it spawn jagged minions off minion deaths instead of enemies.

1) Minion mastery becoming a master trait would be a massive nerf to minion builds.

2) Reanimator is going to be combined with Death Nova, two traits which have a lot of internal synergy.

Actually, Death Nova is the only trait you want to have a Jagged Horror for anyway, so I think combining those would be a really cool move.

Necromantic Corruption is overshadowed by Death Nova already, so maybe that one needs a buff..? How about merging Necromantic Corruption and Fetid Consumption (do MMs pick this trait?) in Death Magic as a defensive counterpart to Death Nova. Or merge them both in Blood Magic and make way for a non-minion gm trait in DM? It would be a strong Blood Magic gm for once, but makes you drop either 20 in Spite or 30 in DM to get it.

Don’t scare the devs away, Andele :P

We got more red posts today than the entire past year.

11/07/2013: Dev Appreciation Day!

Bhawb.7408:

To people talking about DS use in condition builds:

You do realize that essentially every “meta” condition build right now finishes its burst with DS right? You do your bleeds on whatever weapon you’re on -> swap weapon (Geomancy Sigil) -> bleeds on that weapon -> DS (Weakening Shroud) -> DS 2/3

This is the current type of bleed rotation used, and it relies on DS for a pretty large amount of its damage, in fact DS is what gives it that little push over the top. It is reasonable to expect that condi Necros would have LF to do that more often. It also gives us more burning in situations where we can sit in DS, because this game isn’t only PvP.

Dhuumfire as it is now can be triggered by DS skills as well.
But yeah, a burning LB would actually make the condition burst a little bit slower and predictable because you’d have to wait for the 1sec channel.

Bhawb.7408:

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wont do it for Dec 10. I just wanted to throw out a wacky possible idea for Dhuumfire that we could discuss…

• Life Blast has a 100% chance to cause Burning on hit (2 seconds long). 6 seconds ICD.

Obviously the #s are ballpark and not necessarily final. The % chance, duration, and ICD are all subject to change.

Jon

I really like the idea.

My only worry, what about piercing life blast?

6 sec ICD, piercing doesn’t matter.

That Dhuumfire idea is really good btw, it would require doing something on the players part rather than it being a passive proc, and it be avoidable from the opponent’s perspective too. In short: it rewards skilled play
Also, you’d make Life Blast more accessible for condition mancers! genius.

alanis.6094:

In the curses tree, or spite? If its 30 spite, it really still doesn’t make sense — since it would be based off precision and do condition damage (curses line). It would fit really well in Curses or Soul Reaping.

He said “on hit”.
Imo this version would make even more sense in Spite than it does now, but maybe it could be lowered to master tier then.

Bhawb.7408:

JonPeters.5630:

We are going back and forth between 2s and 3s of weakness. 3s with full condi duration and with Near to Death trait is almost 65% uptime, which sortof scared us on an adept trait that gives AoE weakness. 2s works out to 42% uptime when maxed out which felt a little better. Still open to discussion so thanks,

Jon

That was my worry. What about a 10s ICD, so that it can’t be used with Near to Death to “abuse” the weakness duration?

There would be no abuse for the same reason that those % uptime numbers aren’t realistic.
Because:
For the Shroud cooldown to really line up like that would mean that you enter and immediately leave DS again, so you would trigger Weakening Shroud but never really get to use Death Shroud itself.
I can speak from my own experience when I say that I spend about 30-50% of my time during combat in DS, and Weakening Shroud with its current 15 sec icd triggers about 70% of the time when I’m entering DS.
So it’s safe to assume that neither 2 nor 3 sec weakness would not lead to an Enfeebling Blood spam.

JonPeters.5630:

AN UPDATE
Weakening Shroud. This trait now does a smaller version of Enfeebling Blood when entering Death Shroud. Bleeding (1 stack only; 6 seconds [10s with full condition duration spec]). Weakness (2s [3s with full condition duration spec]). No ICD.

Obviously this is a very big change so please discuss, and keep your discussion constructive, so that we can actually talk through the merits/downsides.

Jon

Several thoughts on this:

1. Much better than a regular Enfeebling Blood with 25 sec cd! So thanks in advance.

2. No ICD is really nice!
This gives a little more weight to Near to Death, more than any boon-upon-entering-DS-trait I believe.

3. This change will somewhat defuse how dangerous it can be to stand close to a necro once he goes into Shroud, yet from a necro’s pov it maintains (or even increases) survivability by always being able to mitigate some damage at close range when DS is available.

4. I’m a little confused as to why 100% condition duration would increase a 6sec bleed by only 4 seconds, and a 2 sec weakness by just 1 sec…?
Or was this regarding the highest possible duration increase in sPvP only?

5. I can see that it’s a bit of a bummer for players like spoj in PvE.
Perma weakness on npcs can be achieved by other means, but of course at the cost of losing some dps.
Maybe future patches will compensate for the shortcomings of necros in PvE anyway, but I think if the current Weakening Shroud needs a nerf then this is a really good solution.

Vital Persistance would be worth picking over other traits if Death Shiver was merged with it.

Currently Death Shiver is a trait that doesn’t make sense at all:
It’s a master trait in a non shroud related trait line, the pulses are too long, the stacks too little the radius too small.

But what if it was a side effect of Vital Persistence? A trait that let’s you stay in Shroud longer and even rewards you for doing so.

JonPeters.5630:

We will talk today about changing duration on weakening shroud instead of cooldown .

Also we have some plans for death magic including merging reanimated with death nova, and moving Protection of the Horde to be a major trait, and then reworking the minors in this line. This kind of change is not going to happen for dec 10 for 3 reasons.
1) testing time
2) implementation time
3) most importantly: if we rework this we want to make sure it is correct the second time around so we will take our time deciding on the “right” design.

Point 3 is something I’m happy to discuss here to list some ideas and break down some pros and cons.

Thanks,

Jon

Wow! Incredible news!

So, the Death Magic changes… was that an invitation for us to post ideas or do the devs already have something specific in mind and we can give feedback once you publish it here?

I’m not surprised how fast those people go down.
However, I’m a little curious about the build as well.
He chose to go with Signet Mastery instead of Chill of Death (which would down those boon heavy classes even faster), but he kept Spiteful Spirit.
It seems to be 30/30/10, because he has Staff Mastery but no Greater Marks, and no points in Soul Reaping because the lf bar says 12k.
Sooo… what’s the 3rd Curses trait if you’re using nothing but signets?

@Necromancer:

• Curses IV – Weakening Shroud. Increase recharge from 15 to 25.

I’d like to resubmit the suggestion to reduce both conditions of this skill by 50% instead of increasing the cooldown. (= 1xbleed, 3sec weakness)

Increasing the icd contradicts what you’re trying to achieve:

JonPeters.5630:

We brought down some of the raw DPS conditions that necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements.

…we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud.

When Weakening Shroud is off cooldown the DPS will be exactly the same as it allows for the same bleeding damage and the same duration of weakness as a cover condition.
On the other hand, sustain in Death Shroud will be heavily reduced because damage mitigation by applying weakness to melee attackers will only work every 2nd or 3rd time you enter DS.

In regards to your statement that weakness uptime with this is too high for an adept trait:
It’s not about uptime, but chosing the right moment for damage mitigation. Every necro would gladly have the weakness duration reduced if it meant that the cooldown could stay the same.

Bloodfiend attacks about once every 3 seconds, that amounts to less healing than the warrior signet. And the only good thing about Consume Conditions is the cleanse, the healing it gives is actually pretty bad relative to the big hp pool of necros.

Ascii.9726:

they already nurfed MoB in a standard condition build by moving Greater Marks up one position and out of reach for anyone wanting Dhuumfire and Terror.

30/20/20/0/0 ?

On topic: It really is weird.
For those who play scepter as main weapon (which does sinlge target bleed stacking a lot better), the staff will do 1 or at most 2 Marks of Blood before they swap again. That’s two stacks of bleeding less, Barbed Precision RNG is likely to stack more than that with any other weapon.

Well, the video title says it all: “Gankin’ noobs”. I wouldn’t read too much into it regarding balance.

omg it’s true!

JonPeters.5630:

FYI, the cooldown thing is a bug. We are fixing that for nov 26th I believe.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!

thank you!

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

It’s a free 2k damage (full duration) every time it procs…

…in sPvP. In WvW this can net 6-7k if it isn’t cleansed, and of course the longer duration there provides a longer cover for other damaging condis. It creates a snowball effect that is almost uncounterable for some classes, and like it’s been said already: it requires no effort on the necro’s part to be pulled off.

Drarnor is right, “almost all builds” is not every build… and that’s what minor traits are about. Also, if they are in a defensive trait line (which Death Magic is) then those traits should improve every build’s defense rather than 1 weapon.

And btw, moving the current DM minors to major traits would just create 2 traits that no one would ever take, and we all know there are enough of those in DM already.

Also: nooooo!! Ascii is a Dhuumfire fanboy :P

According to the patch preview Incendiary Powder will be moved to master tier.

For necros it’s actually 2 seconds in sPvP only and still 4 seconds in WvW/PvE, just like Incendiary Powder.
Also, getting Dhuumfire means you’ll have +30% condition duration from the trait line, and at least an extra 40% from food in WvW.

It’s not just incredibly strong, but it’s a passive proc: no skill – high reward, mix that with the already high condition pressure a necro can apply and it becomes overkill.

RashanDale.3609:

You forgot Soul Marks and +10%markdamage (i forgot the name). could be merged aswell.
hell, it boggles my mind how something like this can still be in the game… 4 traits, spread across 3 different traitlines. just for 1 kittening weapon.

It’s not about the weapon, it’s about what the traits can do for you.
Staff Mastery and Greater Marks belong in the same line, which they are.
Soul Marks improves lf regen so naturally it’s in Soul Reaping.
Spiteful Marks is in Spite because it increases damage. But this trait is so weak that no one ever picks it anyway, you might just argue that all relevant staff traits are in 2 different lines, and that is pretty normal for any type of traits.

alanis.6094:

Make Withering precision AoE weakness and the 25 point minor in Curses. Move “target the weak” to where Siphoned Power is.

I think it would make more sense the other way around.
Imo Target the Weak is in the perfect spot where it is atm, even for pure condition builds.

How about this though:
Shrouded Removal becomes the new adept minor in Death Magic and Siphoned Power replaces Protection of the Horde, but instead of might it gives protection. A trait that gives a defensive boon on low health, in a defensive trait line that also increases boon duration.

Haha awesome.

Dark Armor would obviously need to not work in downed state.
Terror would have to switch places with Lingering Curse.
Death Nova is actually the MM trait to pick over Necromantic Corruption, so mabye move that one down if you had the improved Dark Armor as grandmaster.
Withering Precision could be combined with Panik Attack.

Still, those patchnotes make so much more sense than the official preview.

aspirine.6852:

Is it too long, too often, too much damage?

All of it.

Complaints about it go back to the day this trait was implemented. A quick google search will reveal what is but the tip of the iceberg:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Please-nerf-necro-s/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Constructive-necromancer-thoughts/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Dear-Anet-do-not-completely-nerf-Necro/
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Dhuumfire-has-upset-everyone
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/I-ll-say-it-Dhuumfire-needs-to-go/

aspirine.6852:

We know by now that you do not like dhuumfire. Please stop using it and you will be fine. No need for your personal vendetta against it.

I don’t use it. It’s nothing personal, I’m just calling it for what it is, and I’m not the only one.

@CHIPS:

I agree with your posts completely. But I think (hope) that “PvP only” means sPvP, not WvW. Most of the time WvW gets the PvE-balance, like Lame-fire.

Berullos.6928:

Weakening Shroud
While it is an incredible strong ability. I do not mind having the bleed entirely moved per Ascii’s post. I would love a 10ICD on demand PbAoE weakness.

Per flow’s post
And yeah, I’ll say it again: a longer icd for Weakening Shroud does not promote “bring down raw dps but maintain sustain elements”. All it does is reduce survivability, but still allow for the same condi burst when the trait is off cd.
If you want to reduce weakness uptime, then do just that: reduce the weakness duration of the trait. Because for necros it’s not about uptime anyway, but being able to apply it for a short amount of time when we need it the most.

I’m so glad the first thing you talked about is the staff and its cooldown bugs. Yes, I will still call them bugs, because despite what a dev might have said, in context of all other skills in the game the way our marks behave atm can simply not be intended. It’s an injustice, and frankly an insult to players to pretend that this was an intended change from the start.
Like you said, it’s like changing Hundred Blades to just hit twice and no longer cleave… but telling no one about it until 4 month later -.-

When the whole commotion about the next patch preview dies down, I’ll start a petition thread to get our regular interrupt cooldowns back.

Andele.1306:

Wait what? Where was that posted? Does that mean they wont fix Staff and keep the “bugs”?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Necromancer-Putrid-Mark/

JonPeters.5630:

Weakening Shroud
This trait as it currently stands on live is a borderline grandmaster trait. It is near 100% AoE weakness uptime for a small investment. The new version is still probably worthy of master tier with almost 50% AoE weakness uptime.

I agree that the quality of Weakening Shroud exceeds adept tier.
I already posted this in the original discussion thread, but here it is again: many necros wouldn’t have a problem with reduction of weakness uptime or just 1 stack of bleeding if the cooldown stays the same.
You could make it apply 1x bleeding and 3 sec weakness, but keep the 15 sec cd. I bet some would even agree to a 10 sec cd without any bleeding at all, instead of a regular Enfeebling Blood every 25 sec.

It’s not about uptime for necros, but about chosing the right moment to mitigate damage and increase sustain in shroud.
If all you do is increase the cd, you’ll take away survivability but still allow for the same condition pressure if the skill is off cooldown.

JonPeters.5630:

…at the end of the day all master tier traits in this line are overshadowed by Terror which is the real problem.

I agree that Terror overshadows all other traits, but that’s not necessarily a problem.
All condition builds go 30 in Curses only if they want a second master trait (Lingering Curse is PvE only).
But if you bump Terror to gm, then you’ll only nerf those builds who aren’t using 30 points in Curses already. So Terror overshadowing other traits is only problematic if you think that players shouldn’t have a trait in a different line as well, because necros will always pick Terror for PvP content.

JonPeters.5630:

Dhuumfire
We know there are problems here, but again this condition helps those conditionmancers get over the top and is really what brought them into play in a lot of parts of the game. I think the real problems with this trait are:
1) Having to put 30 points into the power line as a condition necro.
2) Requiring crit on a 30 point trait in a line that does nothing to improve crit chance.

We talk about a lot of different versions of this trait including moving to master tier, making it on hit instead of on crit, and reworking the numbers to making it more reliable to use and to counter.

Mind… blown.. O_o

I can NOT belive that you feel this trait needs easier access. The real problems with this trait… is the trait! It needs to be erased from the necro trait lines forever, unless you plan to make it the second gm Curses besides Terror.

Let’s get one thing straight: Dhuumfire is stupid op even if (!!!) you run full Carrion or Dire with less than 20% crit chance. It will always proc reliably (you get fury with 15 in Curses), it requires no skill and has absolutely zero drawbacks defensive wise.
The fact that you go 30 in Spite to get it doesn’t make it weaker at all. It actually makes the necro stronger, because most skills (especially DS) have strong hybrid tendencies anyway. And there’s Chill of Death and some really good adept traits, nothing that a condi-mancer wouldn’t want.
Move it down to master tier so you can have 20/30///? Not sure if I want to laugh or cry at this -_-

Dhuumfire is an embarrassment to the necro profession!

Staff Marks

Tyler Chapman.1832:

We are changing the tooltip to clear up the confusion for this skill (Putrid Mark). It is a 3 condition transfer from self to foes when they trigger it. None of the other issues are bugs.

Hope this clears things up. This skill has undergone major balance renovations.

It will no longer cleanse teammates and it will always give a full cooldown when interrupted because its one of the best skills in the game.

These are one of the biggest changes to a single weapon in the game yet.
You didn’t mention those nerfs in the patch notes or anywhere else in the past 4 months.
We all know that this is one of the weakest excuses for what was clearly an unintentional change originally.

Now, I can accept the fact that you don’t want all contions to hit one single target, I can also somewhat understand that you don’t want to pile a full team cleanse and transfer to the condition pressure of the current meta.
BUT:
What is absolutely mind boggling is that you want to keep the full cooldown on interrupt. This decision makes absolutely no sense at all.
You claim that Putrid Mark was one of the best skills in the game… then you nerf it by taking away the group support completely and reduce the effectiveness of the cleanse (again, without telling anyone about it officially, but players had to find out by themselves..).
Now…. why on earth would you punish every single skill of one weapon because of one that was hugely nerfed in the same patch anyway?!?
EVERY. SINGLE. SKILL of this weapon goes on full cooldown if interrupted. I don’t believe for a second that someone came up with the idea: hey guys! did you see how strong Putrid Marks is? We should nerf it… and then put ALL marks on full cooldown if they get interrupted to add insult to injury for the blatant awesomeness that Putrid Marks once was. :P

Death Shroud HP

The July/23 patch included these changes:
• Damage taken while in death shroud will now overflow to the necromancer’s health pool if the damage taken is greater than the remaining life force.
• Fixed a bug that caused the necromancer to take increased damage from direct attacks while in death shroud.

The last patch that introduced an actual number being displayed on the lf bar confirmed a theory that necromancers had since then:

The necro’s Shroud hp is in fact 120% of their regular hp.
The number dispayed is just 60% but the damage taken in DS is 50%, for any type of damage… conditions, direct of falling damage. It’s all exactly 50%, so the hp value is basically double of what the number says. This became common knowledge on the necro subforum within hours after that patch was released.

Question: What are the plans for this?
I (and every other necro I presume) hope that you’ll adjust the tooltip instead of doubling the damage. This change to Shroud hp (combined with several improvements to life force regeneration) was what made DS actually usable as a sustain type of mechanic instead of jumping in and out to use the DS skills for bursts.
The lf pool as it is feels like what it should have been all along, it makes so much more sense now and for the first time really allowed for sustaining though Shroud.

@Necromancer

JonPeters.5630:

We brought down some of the raw DPS conditions that necromancer enjoys, while also maintaining their pressure and sustain elements.

While I 100% agree that this is the right way to go with the necro, some of the proposed changes are very counterproductive in that context:

Weakening Shroud:

The reason why so many complain about the increased cd already is not because of the lost condi pressure. In fact, it’s not even a trait used exclusively by condition-mancers.
The sustain through death shroud will suffer from this the most.

JonPeters.5630:

…we want the Necromancers to be focused on sustaining themselves through death shroud.

So if I wanted this trait to apply less pressure, but maintain its defensive purposes, then I would keep the same cooldown but reduce the bleeding and weakness duration. For example: 1x bleeding and 4 sec of weakness instead of 6 sec.
In fact, I bet players would rather have a 10 sec cd with no bleeding at all, instead of a regular Enfeeblind Blood every 25 seconds.

If the skill itself stays as it is, you’ll just have the same damage pressure, only less often. That will reduce survivability in Death Shroud heavily, but still allow for the same condition burst rotation if the skill is off cooldown.

JonPeters.5630:

• Death 5 – Reanimator. Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.

Now you’re just teasing us… why are you trying to fix this trait??
Any effort put into this is a waste, remove it already.

Some issues that weren’t adressed in the preview:

Dhuumfire

I’ve read a comment by John Sharp saying that there were plans for Dhuum/Terror down the road. Still, I want to be the 1000th person here to say what needs to be said:

Dhuumfire is an embarrassment to the necromancer profession!
This trait should not have existed in the first place, it is responsible for the infamous condition meta and brought the necromancer nothing but nerfs anywhere else but this trait. You always insist on wanting to increase build diversity, but most condition nerfs pushed players to take up Dhuumfire even more.

I don’t know a single person who likes this trait, not even necromancers. In WvW it’s as about as hated as Perplexity rune users or perma-stun warriors. It is a trait that doesn’t require any skill at all because it just auto procs huge damage, and despite some people argueing so: there is absolutely no drawback in defense. None!

If you really want to reduce condition pressure: Dhuumfire needs to go. Not some weird solution where you reduce the effectiveness of both fear and burning… or other conditions, but Dhuumfire itself. This is the culprit right there.

There have been many suggestions, but I’ll just say it again:
Dhuumfire should apply torment instead of burning. Imo 2 stacks if the duration stays the same.
Or: if you absolutely want to keep it in the game, move both Terror and Dhuumfire to grandmaster in Curses, so it becomes impossible to trait for both.

Phenn.5167:

Jayce.5632:

Mark of Blood like all other marks goes on full cooldown when cancelled/interrupted

So do Well of Power, Life Siphon, and Tainted Shackles.

Well of Power: as a stun break it’s instant cast, so it counts as used even if you interrupt/cancel the well later.
Life Siphon is a channeling skill.
Not true for Tainted Shackles.

I gotta say… it somewhat looks like the devs were checking out Bhawb’s trait discussion thread and/or the last podcast.

• Mark of Blood:1 bleed in PvP only.

Why?
I’d rage hard if this was a WvW change as well.

• Signet of Spite: Removed one bleed.

Ok…?
that changes everything. nat!

• Spite 15 – Death into Life: Increased conversion from 5% to 7%

Are you sure this isn’t supposed to read 70%? Because then we’d actually notice this trait.

• Spite X – Chill of Death: trigger threshold from 25% to 50%.

One of the most potent traits in PvP gets a chance to trigger a lot more often now. Good thing they’ll nerf Mark of Blood to compensate -_-

• Curses IV – Weakening Shroud: Increase recharge from 15 to 25.

I guess it makes sense to give it the same cd as Enfeebling Blood, but I really don’t think it was a necessary change.
This is hands down my favorite trait, so I’ll definitely still use it even with a longer cd.

• Curses VIII – Banshee’s Wail: Increase cooldown reduction from 15% to 20%.

Umm.. good.
I get the feeling that the few devs who actually play a necro occasionally are using a warhorn, because that’s the one weapon that repeatedly got buffed over the last months.

• Death 5 – Reanimator: Decreased cooldown from 30s to 15s.

Why??? Why are they trying to fix this trait? Any effort put into this is a waste, remove it already.

• Death VIII – Reaper’s Protection: Decreased the cooldown from 90s to 60s.

Appropriate change, still a bad trait.

• Death 25 – Deadly Strength: Increased conversion from 5% to 10%.

Interesting. That might be the best buff for Death Magic ever.
(I guess healing power is too op for necros, so Death into Life just got a 2% raise)

• Blood Magic 25 – Blood to Power: Decreased health threshold from 90% to 75%. Increase Power from 90 to 120.

Sounds good, makes a lot more sense this way.

• Soul Reaping II. Vital Persistence: Increased reduction of life force drain from 25% to 50%.

This trait might be worth taking then, not sure if anyone would drop an offensive trait for it though.

Bawi… nice ^^

Yeah, I don’t believe for a second that this was an intentional change originally.

All skills in the game (except for some other bugged skills..?) are getting locked for 5 seconds when interrupted. Why would the necro who got serious damage buffs (among others) with the same patch get a stealth nerf that causes, not just the allegedly overpowered Putrid Mark, but all marks to go on full cooldown?
This mechanic makes no sense in context of the rest of the game. And if that one skills is that powerfull, why would they nerf all skills of the same weapon with the same “feature”, instead of just nerfing Putrid Mark… oh wait, they did: no more ally cleasing and just 3 condis per target.
That’s why I immediately asked if all marks are considered “one of the best skills in the game”.
The full cd on interrupt makes no sense, but at least we got an official statement for once :/

Yeah, I don’t believe for a second that this was an intentional change originally.

All skills in the game (except for some other bugged skills..?) are getting locked for 5 seconds when interrupted. Why would the necro who got serious damage buffs (among others) with the same patch get a stealth nerf that causes, not just the allegedly overpowered Putrid Mark, but all marks to go on full cooldown?
This mechanic makes no sense in context of the rest of the game. And if that one skills is that powerfull, why would you nerf all skills of the same weapon with the same “feature”, instead of just nerfing Putrid Mark… oh wait, you did: no more ally cleasing and just 3 condis per target.
That’s why I immediately asked if all marks are considered “one of the best skills in the game”.
The full cd on interrupt makes no sense, but at least we got an official statement for once :/

Tyler Chapman.1832:

We are changing the tooltip to clear up the confusion for this skill. It is a 3 condition transfer from self to foes when they trigger it. None of the other issues are bugs.

Hope this clears things up. This skill has undergone major balance renovations.

It will no longer cleanse teammates and it will always give a full cooldown when interrupted because its one of the best skills in the game.

Great success! We got an answer… not sure I like it though xD

Thx for clarifying!

The full cooldown “bug”, will it only stay this way for Putrid Mark? Or are all marks considered “best skills in the game”?

How does Quickening Thirst give you an extra well?
Btw the trait isn’t meant for anything, it’s just bad…

You mean it sould also increase their regular attack speed?
I know you’ve been a MM in sPvP forever, so I can’t really argue with you when it comes to balancing minions. However, considering that all other “X Mastery” traits of main hand weapons just reduce cds of their utility skills, this might be a gray area for minion auto attacks.

I tested some stuff with sigil of fire a few weeks ago and made a weird discovery. If I paired the sigil of fire with an on-swap like geomancy, then the swap damage itself could trigger the flame blast.
That means that the swap attack, which clearly causes the crit proc, doesn’t chronologically precede it. A sigil time paradox, if you will ^^

@torment sigil: good to know.
I can’t use it atm, but I’ve read in the sPvP forum a while ago that devs are planning to implement a second sigil slot for two-handed weapons. In that case the sigil would be a strong contender for my staff, considering that up to 5 attacks at once are more likely to trigger it.

I would personally use it in addition to an on-swap sigil, but even if it doesn’t share an icd with on-crits… coverage almost always beats damage: in a PvP environment covering a cleansing spot can net a lot more damage than a single stack of bleeding by far. Also, players are always moving, no one stands still because of a single stack of torment.
In PvE you’d only want bleeding instead of (non-moving) torment if you’re fighting trash mobs, but of course aoe procs would be a better choice here.
On bosses bleeding will get pushed off too quickly. Torment on the other hand is very rare, in fact I have yet to see 25 stacks of torment… as far as I could tell this doesn’t even happen in world events. So even then you’re pretty much guaranteed that your torment will run its full duration.