Guild Wars 2

Like I’ve been saying 1 month, some of the increased scepter duration should have been baseline.

The bonus 150 condition damage is very boring. The trait shouldn’t exist.

At least random stuff will not get nerfed for non condition users.

Bhawb.7408:

If it were a blast finisher this trait would be amazing, until then I think it is okay, its still boon corruption + retal and a nice AoE damage on a smallish CD, but not quite enough to warrant GM.

+1000

With a blast finisher, the trait is good competition to close to death, and opens possibilities like blasting you well of blood for condition removal.

As is, The skill and trait actually got nerfed and isn’t GM worthy by a long shot.

On paper it’s the same, except the boon rip became a corruption (a buff), but the main use of Axe 3 was to peel, and the nerf to cripple changed that.

You will not be able to use the cripple to buy time anymore.

Maybe reapers can see use of this. Maybe you can also take withering precision with this to get 2 weak skill’s worth of damage a boon rip and 3 conditions when you enter shroud in melee range. Still pretty weak if that’s 2/3 of your grandmasters.

If it applies only to axe then it is a straight nerf to axe training. Why even make the change, axe is already awful?

Why did you ever swap to necromancer in the first place.?

Anyways I think the idea is to get us to swap to Revenant, which has the same deliberate play style but without a lost of the hassles that necromancer faces because some necromancer dominated some noobs in beta.

A long time ago somebody posted a guide of “how to build a minion master with good defense and team support.”

It was a guardian with 5-6 horrors following him (from lich runes).

I couldn’t find the picture or the thread or I would have linked.

It’s not worthless, but +50% downed state damage helps me rally about once every 10 games.

That’s pretty bad & this is a nerfed version of that.

As a power necromancer, I’m looking at spite

• Spite has Chill of Death and a bunch of Garbage*

The previewed traits had the condition removal trait as a minor, but this changed spite to have the downed state trait (functionally worthless) as the minor.

I am exited about literally nothing else in the line. I suppose siphoned power isn’t aggressively offensively putrid now, and the signet trait is build defining in a good way. Too bad signets are terrible.

Btw: what is signet of lesser vampirism?

If I take this blood trait and the spite signet trait, and then I cast signet of spite on a target who has one bleed will I get 2 boon rips and 3 might stacks) for the signet trait, AND (2 boon rips and 3 might stacks) for having more than 3 bleeds, triggering the blood trait?

(I’m guessing that this does not work and there is an internal cool down somewhere, probably in the signet trait)

I like the New Curses Trait Setup

I’ll be able to take

Plague Sending
Path of Corruption
Weakening Shroud

All in the same build. Plus some bonus precision from the minor traits. Anybody who builds precision (or takes Deathly perception) on a Necromancer is going to love this. Reapers less so (the RS2 skill looks like it will have terrible interactions with path of corruption).

Plague sending looks great at first glance. It will be an uncontrollable proc, gated by the need to crit somebody, but the transfer will help a lot. Non reapers will love this. (Reapers will be immobilized, crippled and kited because their movement trait is ineffective against anybody with condition duration).

(+2 boons converted and 3 might stacks if you are taking the signet trait too).

Changing boon corruption to RNG acts as a buff (plus all of the free boons that anet is power creeping into the game on every class but necromancer indirectly buff boon removal).

And withering precision is a great “why should a non condimancer take curses” grandmaster.

Weakness is now the “control movement” condition to take, especially combined with the vigor nerf, & it shuts down those builds that require sigil procs to burst. Necromancer weakness application isn’t that great, and I’m glad we got it back.

Tl;DR

New curses looks great for power users, really for anybody building precision and staying with necromancer and not going reaper.

Zerker rules PvE.

WvW, I think you you’ll want to go hybrid.

Power/assassins (zerker if you’re taking deathly perception), but with some condition duration from Runes/sigils, so that your various vulnerabilities and chills and fears and whatevers aren’t reduced to nothing by opposing passive traits.

Rym.1469:

Have fun in the first week. After that, I can bet 100g, you won’t see Condition Necromancer in any tpvp competitive play whatsoever.

You’ll win that bet because necromancer is in sorry shape right now.

Anyways, the reason we all take consume conditions is that we need the condition removal.

If we could use finishers to remove conditions with well of blood, or the minion trait was reliable, then that would be a different story.

Power creep has given everybody far more conditions than the necromancer can handle. The new plague signet trait will help, but I’ve been playing Shoutbow which has a similar trait and that trait alone is vastly insufficient.

The alternatives still don’t remove conditions & we’ll still be taking consume conditions.

If this was done in connection with removing the abusive aspects of z-axis teleport nerfs, then it’s fair.

It is beyond wrong that teleports can increase movement far beyond their stated range, by abusing pathing.

I read on reddit that a while back players were playing a stronghold beta with this fixed.

If, on the other hand, this was done because anet is going to now sell its gemstore hourglass toy (which has the same functionality as spectral walk), then this nerf is beyond disgusting.

We’ll (don’t laugh I am being serious) have to take the weakness trait to reduce enemy mobility. This will not stop leaps, but it will reduce enemy dodges and it’s the best we’ve got now.

This trait is an insult to anybody who ever played necromancer in Guild Wars One.

All Axe skills need a big buff

That is all.

Necromancers all take consume conditions because there isn’t enough condition removal on the class otherwise.

Necromancer has this great reputation for being able to manage conditions, but that hasn’t been true since launch. Everybody has been handed power creep conditions, and necromancer options have been nerfed.

At least the patch seemed to acknowledge this and buff anti condition traits. But it’s not enough. Why put a trait like unholy martyr on the necromancer, if it doesn’t have the tools to deal with it?

Maybe if we could use finishers on well of Bood…..
Maybe if we could get a guaranteed heal on bone minion death….
Maybe if signet of vampirism never existed and was something useful conceptually…
Maybe if the raw numbers and slow cast time on the new reaper hour heal weren’t so awful…

There are two ledge on the center point of Nifhel.

Some classes can port to the top of these ledges and free cast on anybody in the middle. This is a huge advantage that either everybody should possess or nobody should posses.

Fix the broken teleport spots or everybody gets teleports.

The downed state trait has +50% damage. close to death has another damage buff of 20%

This affects the chill of death proc. So your getting hit by 170% chill of death + air + fire.

Is this OP? It’s worth 1 rally every 10 games. The necromancer downed state is still terrible, even though it has the HP to stall being DPS’d down and some pressure to apply to stompers.

The downed state state trait should get nerfed to only affect the downed state skills. I don’t think that’s happening, I think the trait is instead getting gutted.

Alternatively anet could improve necromancer traits so that players have the choice to take something more useful than downed state traits.

Scepter also has a much better cripple than axe. The only thing axe has going for it is the boon rip on #3. That’s not enough.

You shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up to being with.

Chill Spam was on the #3 hit of the slow GS auto attack chain. As soon as players get used to fighting reapers, it was never going to land. (all enemies have to do us kite you for the 3 seconds before it disappears and it’s gone). Plus, no greatsword, no chill spam & wasted traits.

Plus the thief was already pretty much immune to chill. The revenant is potentially mostly immune too.

That’s before you get into the fact that the reaper doesn’t have some of te tools to properly fight in melee (blocks) and its stability is gated by reaper shroud. Plus no defense against and a bad on paper gap closer (again gated by RS) leaves you a sittng duck against range.

That why a bunch of us have been saying that necromancer is actually much better than reaper in Pvp and WvW.

It also conflicts with the bonus chill duration reaper minor trait.

The problem with the new lingering curse is that a bunch of PvPers are going to get hit with double duration DS fears, Dhuumfires (and other trait, rune, sigil conditions), focus chills, & DS 5 immobilizes.

Then those things are going to get nerfed, making LC a must take for everybody, even non condition builds.

Devona’s Rest had a Charr Zerg the other night

Cant you still get legacy/Krytan armor right now by buying one of the account upgrades?

So the guy who is paying for the farm can also tag the mobs too and get to share in the loots

The real concern:

I have a guardian that I leveled to 80 with Pvp Tomes. The guardian did almost no skill challenges, but opened enough scrolls to unlock the skills and traits.

Will I lose stuff I have now because this character doesn’t have map completion?

Even after retreading it twice I was confused: They talk about “all of the damaging conditions,” but they neglect to mention chill (which will soon be a damaging condition) and fear.

So I thought that, as damaging conditions, they might get treated the same way, but the article doesn’t say so. It just kind of ignores them.

Too bad. (I actually like the idea of making immobilize stacking == nerf, but I dont think that’s happening)

A mixed bag of news

1. Doesn’t happen until specialization patch, aka HoT, aka August 30 if we are lucky
2. Intensity stacking for chill and cripple and immobilize and fear is a big nerf
3. They are keeping the 25 stack limit or vulnerability which means that vulnerability stacking weapons, aka axe, are still pointless

You really are a sitting duck against range. At least your condition user probably has nightmare runes for a first defense.

L Step.8659:

If there’s no place to line of sight you don’t win. You just cannot make up the range without eating too much damage/wasting lifeforce.

Spectral armor helps but it’s not enough.

You really have to get to melee range. Once in melee range, you can make the ranger longbow channel #2 fail by running to the other side of the ranger. (you’ve got 2 dodges but he’s got 3 immobilizes so you can’t just dodge his rapid fire). Also, Line of sight will prevent his damage from hitting you. Hide behind your flesh Wurm if you have to1!

… But it’s much worse than the death should skill it replaces…

Reapers will have to run some sort of condition duration increase.

Otherwise chill will not last long enough for reapers to benefit from it.

Deaths Charge looks horrible. It has a one second cast time / windup, and the actual charge isn’t so hot either.

Like warrior staff banner charge, the skill is no better than running to your enemy with swiftness. You wolnt be able to gap close with this and you wolnt be able to increase your land-speed with this.

Nor do you get any evade while you are charging. You’re actually a sitting duck like the ranger sword auto attack root.

Also it’s a reaper shroud skill, so you can’t count on it always being available to you. Using reaper shroud to get movement forfeits your defense.

Then when it hits, you inflict not cripple or chill but poison, which does nothing to stop an enemy from kiting you (the whole reason you needed a gap close to begin with).

At least there’s a blast finisher (ofc blasting a water field wolnt heal you).

+1000 to this thread

If healing is supposed to be a play style, then all characters should be able to get heals.

Abbehemoth.2471:

Why are all the Revenants-to-be crying out on this forum (I know you lack your own sub forum but please use the HoT instead of this one) about how Necros didn’t become Monks/Paragons?

Because

(1) Anet took our ideas to fix necromancer and put them on the revenant, and
(2) because anet didn’t fix the necromancer.

This will result in

(3) a very similar profession to the Necomancer (a slow moving, slow casting tanky character with good sustain and condition damage but no blocks), that
(4) has a role to play in meta groups (the utility) while the necromancer doesn’t.

A lot of the dev effort could have gone to fixing the necromancer. Indeed, the revenant may even be the “fixed necromancer” profession. But, if that’s true we need to reroll.

Nobody wants to be monks/paragons, but, if you played GW1, necromancer could be good at monking and had more enemy debuffing, and offensive buffing tn the GW2 version.

Vizardlorde.8243:

nekretaal.6485:

Axe is probably the worst weapon in the game, but it isn’t too far from being useable.

Guard shield says HI!

Guardian shield has a knock back and on-demand protection. (I’ll neglect to mention the projectile defense because the mechanic is terrible)

All of the guardian offhand weapons are really strong. That Guardian focus does the same job as shield better than shield does, doesn’t make shield bad.

Axe 3 needs a blast finisher. That’s the only way Axe 3 == GM trait makes sense. That’s the only way Axe mastery == cool down reduction for 2 skills makes sense. They have to be very good skills.

Axe 2 is boring, but its fine for what it is.

Axe 1 should hit harder. If it needs to stack less vulnerability, that’s ok.

Axe is probably the worst weapon in the game, but it isn’t too far from being useable.

Doubt it.

On small servers, you’ll still want your life blasts to help take out siege on top of walls. You will not want to give that up.

On larger servers or on dedicated “fight” guilds the situation is a little better for the reaper.

You’ll be able to take chilling darkness for your plague blinds, and get some damage reduction from that too. You’ll have stability stacks to help prevent getting stunned on the first push. Your fears will also chill which will annoy your teammates less.

But you still will be dead weight in “pirate ship battles” metas that WvW is turning into. You’ll still need to be carried by your teammates for condition removals, and you still will melt in the AoE that is everywhere. You will not be as good as necromancers for tagging stuff, which means less loot, less life force and less auto revives on kills.

Twelve second fears with double skull!

It has lifesteal on it.

That means DPS (at least from the autoattack) will be awful.

Count on it.

Rejuvenating Assault

We wanted to promote healing through offense rather than as a passive effect.

10+ years of not being able to balance lifesteal.

The last 2 tries to make lifesteal work resulted in terrible Guardian and necromancer heals.

Why is anet still trying to make lifesteal happen? It’s not going to happen. Square peg, round hole.

“Promoting healing through offense” at least is a new way to phrase things.

I would be upset that this is anet again putting fixed necromancer ideas on the Revenant, but we all know that this isn’t going to work. Wait for the revenant staff numbers to come out. Bet you they will be signet of vampirism worthy for both damage and healing.

Axe is among the worst weapons in the game for DPS. Is it now the worst after the nerf?

The auto attack is lower than scepter for power damage. Axe 3 gives you a boon strip, but you are better off using any other weapon than axe.

LC is an issue on its own

1. Baseline, without LC every scepter condition duration is underwhelming
2. Balance issues with every condition from a sigil or rune, and every condition in DS/RS

If LC stats the way it is, condition output on every non LC build will be terribad. Since the new reaper depends on a condition (chill) for its mechanics, that’s a bad thing.

Scepter should have longer conditions baseline. LC should stay a condition damage buff or be eliminated in favor of a trait that power builds can use.

If healing power did more for the necromancer, then scepter could see use as a celestial weapon.

As it is, scepter does more power damage than Axe, and power based feast of corruption isnt useless for those users.

Pro:

Stronghold has easily kill able NPCs, which generate life force.
NPCs “bunch up” and can be AOE’d down easily.
Killing NPCs is very important for protecting or assaulting gates.
Puling Stability in reaper shroud can be good or gathering supply and for channeling mist essence

Cons:

Emphasis on mobility puts slow reaper at a severe disadvantage
Gamemode isn’t conquest: Ranged units can snipe down the reaper without having to engage
Tons of z-axis teleport spots puts anybody who doesn’t have these at a huge disadvantage
Little support for NPCs (aegis & especially heals are especially powerful).

Also: if pulsing stability on every reaper proves to be a big advantage for channelling, then that aspect will get nerfed without compensation for the loss elsewhere.

Verdict: Reaper will be ok in Solo Q as a sort of one-trick pony for lord rushes. In groups that are actually organized and good, the limitations of the build will prevent it from seeing use.

I’m on Borliss Pass. We lost to Erradon Terrace several times only a few weeks ago.

T8 fighting is so intense. In T1, if you win a fight, you might get some bags or get a chance to take a keep. In T8, if you win a fight, players will quit.

So instead of getting a keep, you could be getting a keep for an hour based just on that fight.

The stakes of every battle are really that high. Every move you make, matters a ton. Your player base isn’t small for t8 or even for t7. I saw this with my own eyes. Your server has morale problems,. Your players need to win or they will quit. When you win, everybody comes out and stays out. When you lose, ghost town.

Mostly this means that you need commanders and better/smarter commanders. And you need your up levels to hit lvl 80 already. They are ruining things or your server.

Baseline,

Our weapons should be decent. (This isn’t remotely true of axe, and untraited scepter is underwhelming too)

Our Death Shroud should be decent untraited. (Think of the anet requires you take XX traits to make DS decent as a way of handicapping you)

Our Downed state should be decent baseline (that you can take six traits for it and get a fluke kill every 10 or so games doesn’t make it good)

Get these up to par, and the rest of the traits can even be weaker than they are today, focusing on boons or whatever else.

There are no new traits confirmed. The traits in the next balance have already been announced, they are what you are familiar with..

Anet did announce reworked traits, but I would not get excited. Things like Transfusion don’t make sense with the new reaper shroud, so they are getting different mechanics.

That’s it.

The last time anet looked at blood magic, it changed 3+5=8 Into 5+3=8 and hyped up the change as if that was something meaningful.

Blood is not going to suddenly become a useful sustain/healing/DPS/or support line.

Silv.9207:

.

Necromancer or Reaper, with the actual and future skills, will never be good to be a frontline class in www why it’s total lack of mobility, defensive and healing skills.

This guy knows his WvW.

Reaper is a melee only midliner class. It can’t go into the front, because it will melt, and it can’t stay behind the tanks because it has no range.

Nor can it roam, because it’s mobility is awful. All it really can do it spam pulls and hope they land (pulls are the hardest to land skills in the game with all sorts of targeting issues).

Toxsa.2701:

Bhawb.7408:

All I can say is thank god we’re not in charge of balance. I agree with flow here, we don’t have much that needs to be made baseline except a slightly changed Soul Marks, but some minors need fixing with certain traits added there.

Necro folks seem to be much greedier than Ranger folks :P
Go check the same thread in ranger’s forum, many agree none should be baseline.

BTW, before you say ranger is in better situation than necro, please check this thread first:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/NA-ToL-top-8-teams-How-many-rangers/first#post5112579

Since rangers Rock Paper Scissors hard counter Necromancers so hard, some necromancer buffs would be good for rangers.

Lingering curse shouldn’t exist as a trait.

Baseline additional duration for scepter conditions an eliminate the trait.

I don’t know what ANET’s vision for reaper is.

The necromancer sorta works as a skirmisher. Short range, not a front liner, bad defenses.

The reaper wolnt have the tank abilities for the front line or the top tier DPS.

The idea of corruptions seems to be premised on necromancer transfers being good.

You self corrupt but can throw the condition back on your enemy. In one of the previous balance patch Dev notes, the Devs even mentioned this ‘bonus.’

Unholy Martyr and the condition transfer signet seem based on the same concept.

Unfortunately necromancer condition removal isn’t good.., Its bad, and inadequate for the condition output tat celestial classes output.

In the real world, the self condition… Which removes the ability to OOC heal… Is too much of a defect.

None of the abilities even without the self condition are even good. (Some will argue that epidemic is good based on hypothetical situations, but even they don’t use te skill).

It’s unacceptable how hard countered necromancer is against any good ranged character. We should have some sort of counter move in our toolkit. Something, anything, doesn’t even have to bee good, just has to exist.

Oxidia.8103:

How do you count necros in your match before it starts?

Count the votes for skyhammer.

The similar goes for courtyard. You see, staff elementalists and necros are more likely to choose courtyard. Depends on the daily how much votes will it get. I allways pick it too because it’s faster, and refreshing, since every other map has the same strategy.

Necromancers are awful on sky hammer. Theifs sneak up to the hammer with invisibility, then activate their fear == dead necromancer.

Rangers are the ones who love sky hammer and courtyard. They got ranged knock backs for sky hammer, and aren’t forced onto points for courtyard (and get to play people who are mostly specced to fight on points).