Guild Wars 2

All i want are the Spine Blades made into gliders, whether they’re separate items or unlocked when you get the Spinal Blades, I really don’t care. They’re already basically jet packs, add a little fire to the vents and they’re already the best gliders available.

OR, if you dont want to do that, add a “null” glider that lets you just keep your current back piece and you float as per normal. Then I’ll have my Spinal Blade gliders.

Do this.

AndrewMcLeod.3857:

A few players have noticed that new items can be obtained in the Mystic Forge since last week’s update. We added a number of new items to the possible rewards for combining rare weapons in the mystic forge, including Bloodbound weapons, Aetherized weapons, Shadow of the Mad King weapons, and some orphaned skins from Living World season 1.

This was a part of a bigger update to the mystic forge which wasn’t quite ready for this patch, so we pulled most of the changes as well as the release notes. However, since this change did go into the build, I wanted to let everyone know about it.

Will this include the scythe, which I haven’t seen yet, though greatsaw and grinning shield has been confirmed????

Bhawb.7408:

It needs a lot of work. Compared to RS, DS has a:

• Clunky AA
• Generally low utility
• Bad synergy with itself
• Bad synergy with the rest of the profession

The AA is super long and clunky, without the benefit of projectile finishers. The 2 skill is really easy to miss and takes ages. 4/5 give very low utility compared to RS’s 4/5. Really only the 3 skills are well translated, RS gains the utility of AoE and some stab (to make up for range) but loses the instant, long fear.

But DS really needs a full rework.

Pretty much. I didn’t realize until just yesterday how much I missed Death Shroud in general though… It’s really bad in comparison and leaves much to be desired, but boy do I miss the concept of life blast.

Edit: Instead of piercing though, I wish it would explode like Fireball. I never realized just how much more practical it is until I recently started playing Ele for PVE instead of my Necro.

I don’t know, I do think it needs deeper work.

#1, definitely needs full damage full range. At this point, the Necromancer is the “ranged base” while Reaper is the melee cleaver. That being the case, punishing us for ranging is silly. Especially since other ranged tend to be some of our biggest weaknesses outside of a Warrior/Thief insta-gib combo (base Necro, not reaper). That said, it definitely needs to be faster. Half the cast speed and lower damage by about 25-30%, overall it’d be a dps boost, less harsh numbers, better trait synergy, everyone is happy.

#2, Yes, could either be ground targeted, though I don’t think that’s the design of the skill. I’d be just fine with it acting like steal and after the short cast time, shadow step to your target and let out that burst. It’s thematic, it’s cool and far more practical (as it triggers regardless if the hit lands or not). I’m not sure I expect a full ground target for reasons stated in the past, “necromancers are slow”… Meh, but at least make it reliable.

#3, I don’t really have any specific problems with the fear, though, flattening the fear duration would be really nice, maybe even bump it up to 2 seconds.

#4, This skill could be really cool, right now it’s long and not overly rewarding. If they kept it long but made it a CC break that pulses a 1 second stability per enemy struck, it’d be really neat. The reason this would be cool is that it’d be a scaling stability depending on your enemy load, but not necessarily be a long lasting stability. So you could use it to break the CC and flee by keeping a constant stream of stability flowing while draining enemies. It’d be a unique and interesting way to handle some of the necromancer’s issues when being focused.

#5, I love number 5, can’t imagine why it’d need to change. A shorter 30 second cooldown would be a blessing, but I’m not sure it’s necessary if everything else was touched up.

So to sum:
Faster slightly lighter hitting LB, reliable #2, flat duration #3, work #4 into a unique CC break/scaling defense. Not a lot if you ask me, but it would make a huge difference in both game play and fun.

bearshaman.3421:

Flumek.9043:

Krysard.1364:

bearshaman.3421:

Shouakue.5729:

I can understand from a PvE stand point, Yes, it will stack bleeds but even with that, it still doesnt compare to how much condition damage other classes push out. In a realistic fight against other real people, this is a huge nerf. 1 sec of chill duration for 671 damage is better than 1 stack of bleed for 120. With the amount of dodges, invul, blocks, and immune, you are luck to get 4-6 stacks of bleed with a necro. Not to mention that resistance is becoming more available so when someone gets 3 sec of resistance, all my condi damage is useless and with people running -20% condi dur, all you need is 3 sec of resistance to cancel the damage. Also, many other classes now gain regen very easily which counters bleed and poison pretty easy. I agree that it was strong even with the previous nerf but instead of getting rid of its damage they could of toned it down to like 500ish @1700 condition and have the trait remove one or both of the other abilities chill gave. So it would force the player to chose damage over speed and skill reduction.

With the amount of boon corruption we have, other classes melt between the conditions we pump out and the boons they try to use that we corrupt. Even with a decent number of cleanses, it’s pretty much impossible to be condi free with a necro going at you. And that hasn’t changed with the change of one trait.

It has. If you cleanse the bleed, you are gucci to go.

Exactly. And melt is a strong word unless you meant us.

And before they could cleanse the chill. I don’t see how that’s an argument.

Chill wasn’t our “other” primary damage set, was instant (did more damage up front, and didn’t need stacked every time to deal significant damage) pressure. Our chills also last less time making it easier to remove bleeds. I have a hard time seeing how anyone thinks this isn’t a massive nerf… It’s very logical and simple. o.O

I’m not going to come in claiming the sky is falling, but a full cleric Druid DOES do more damage than it should. I get the whole “its the pet, it’s my class thing”, but at some point, full bunkers should not be able to literally burst people down. We’ve been over this in the past. (I think a big part of this has to do with two specific pets, still and high uptimes on quickness combined.) Regardless, luckily people can focus them, I guess, it’s not the end of the world, but their damage for being clerics with the healing they have seems off to me with the right build.

Robert Gee.

Mesmer.

Teehee, thief, I’d say.

bearshaman.3421:

People aren’t gonna accept that this isn’t a nerf because they don’t want to change how they had their reapers built. They can be just effective, but that requires change, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in life is most people hate change. They’ll eventually get over it, accept that chill damage isn’t coming back (and was a dumb idea to begin with), and move on, especially if they want to stay relevant, but it will be a few months… probably after the summer update gives them something new to gripe about.

Necro (condi) got directly nerfed. If there was a change we could make to be just as good as before, we’d have been doing it before…. And no, the power changes didn’t put it on par with ore-patch condi, so what you said is wrong.

It feels like a nerd because a GM trait got turned into literal garbage, away from what was once a fun (though tuning needed to be done) spec to play. They didn’t just nerf the damage, they nerfed chill durations, and that chill nerf had a domino effect onto other skills such as “CttB!” that no longer feel like they pack the punch they once did. The reason everyone took this trait in the first place was because they destroyed Blighter’s Boon and Onslaught sucks for pvp.

It doesn’t feel like a nerf, it was a nerf. And a nerf isn’t the problem, it was over nerfed for anyone able to do simple (but realistic) math, especially in PvP which got hit both on raw damage, instant pressure/build up, and damage being drawn out over longer periods, thus more likely to be removed. It’s actually pretty huge.

But anyways, it’s an easy fix, other Necromancer problems aren’t quite as easy, and so far, it doesn’t look like they want to take the time to make larger changes right now.

Khyan.7039:

PopeUrban.2578:

Khyan.7039:

No thanks. I don’t want to see GW2 as Pay to win nor I want to see the books useless.

Absolutely no reason to see them in gemstore.

Boosting to L80 is no more pay2win than buying xp boosters. It’s just faster.

Lv80 boost gives you stuff with actual stat. With full spec unlock. It’s definitely pay2win if it was in the gemstore.

Anyway it won’t happen. The books deserves a purpose.

Everyone has full spec unlock at 80, save the elite specialization.

Thanks for all the feed back, a few things I’d like to address.
1. Numbers are obviously not final, but they help show the idea. We’ve seen With Deathly chill that numbers can make all the difference, so I felt it was important to express the track I’m on. If you have any specific numbers you’d like to discuss, call them out. I’m happy to do the numbers game.

2. Yes, I realize there are deeper concerns with Base Necromancer. Like I said in the OP, I’d love for those changes to come, but they are much more involved than a few simple number fixes. Functionality changes are usually set up for major patches, these are more short term changes that are easier and more to the point of our current build layouts.

3. Feel free to add more in depth thoughts on Shouts. The above still sums up my ideals, and if not for the numbers, the issues with them are at least expressed. I’d love a few touch ups on the above skills because I feel shouts are borderline, but not QUITE there yet. Most specifically, I do feel the heal could have more to the healing itself as the group scaling isn’t bad, but it falls short in small scale fights. Lastly, the shout trait is very bland, and I realize this. Again, this is a case of wanting smaller easier changes to increase functionality. I’m not really a fan of the way Augery was handled in the first place, but that’s best left to its own discussion, since it would require some deeper changes.

@Bluewizard, the reason I suggest these “free gifts” as you put it is because these would more greatly impact smaller scale fights (save the case of CttB, which effects both a lot). Shouts are actually not bad against multiple enemies as it stands, but need some sort of slight boost when dealing with fewer enemies. As for “Rise”! It’s just more practical and brings it in line with other similar effects, most of which are between 20 and 30 second cooldowns as it stands, Rise has a significantly longer cooldown. I believe the main reason for this is that it was designed when the pets didn’t have a max duration, now that we have a max duration we can toy with, I think bringing it down to 30 second cooldown would be a sweet spot.

Nighthawk.4687:

Or a rev on your team is just giving your perma fury?
Or you are using combo fields to give yourself fury?
Or any other class on your team is using combo fields to give you fury?

Fury alone is 20%, 24% base crit. 1050 Power, 1050 condi dmg and 24% crit with a 150% crit damage absolutely does not deal similar damage to Viper’s which has higher crit (in ADDITION to Fury) and a direct damage increase from condition duration.

The reason Viper’s isn’t necessarily a go-to has very little to do with the similarity in raw DPS between Viper’s and Mercenary’s. It’s the nature of Condition removals which makes condition duration less valuable of a stat in general.

Take that and couple it with the fact that without a little toughness most condition builds get completely melted unless they are Mesmers, and you have your answer…

Mercenary isn’t over powered, it’s just the most practical way to play condition builds right now, and even then, they’re arguably not the strongest builds in the meta, so what’s the problem?

Jekkt.6045:

remove mercenary and paladin too. they’re basically the new celestial amulet and in my opinion very unhealthy for the game.

They’re not even close. Difference is: Much less total stats, and can be killed.

They’re, in my opinion, sweet spot Amulets. If you want to be bursty and die in 2 hits, be my guest, but I see no reason to quite literally CATER to people who want to run full glass builds with no condition removal, and expect to have no resistance or counter measure to their carnage…

Hey, everyone. After talking to some other Necromancers, non-necromancers and doing some own reflection, I wanted to throw in a my few cents on a couple changes I feel that could tidy up the class a bit and I’ll try my best to explain my reasons. (Note: For this post, I’m going to try to keep it relatively short and sweet, nudges and fixes that could make what we have going for us now more solid, without significant reworks.)

Issue 1: Shifting some LF outside of Soul Reaping.
a) Soul Marks: Move 2% life force gained from marks to the baseline skills. Change Soul marks to: “Marks are unblockable and increase the LF gained by marks by 50%.”

b) Vital Persistence: Baseline 3% life force degeneration. Change Vital Persistence to: “Shrouded Persistence – Reduces the cooldown on shroud abilities by 15% and reduce natural LF degeneration by 33%.”

Reasons: There are a couple reasons for these changes. First off, these changes would not benefit our standard builds at all, but we find ourselves commonly using these two traits in a majority of our effective PVP builds. I wanted to retain a bit of that LF focus on the trait line, but reduce the impact of giving up Soul Reaping. Ways this becomes beneficial is by opening up some diversity options, specifically for Spite/Curses/Reaper condition builds and Spite/x/Reaper Power builds, including allowing just enough freedom to take a broader range of choices in Soul Reaping, allowing Unyielding Blast to be coupled with Decimate Defenses or taking Spectral Mastery over Vital Persistence. All would be more viable and fit well as small but impactful changes to our side builds that are close but not quite there with the heavy reliance on these two traits.

Issue 2: Deathly Chill…
a) Deathly Chill: Change from 1 bleed (8s) to (either):
- Inflicts 2 torment for 8 seconds on chill.
- Chilling an enemy inflicts 2 torment for 5 seconds. Striking a chilled foe grants Chilling Assault (name) increasing condition damage dealt by 2% for 8 (or 10) seconds, stacks up to 5 times. (New stacks do not refresh the entire stack.)

Reasons: There has been a lot of talk among the community. The Developers openly admitted the reason they went with bleed is to ensure it was an offensive trait, thus poison was not a contender for the condition applied. Many of us felt the most obvious choice would be Torment, as Reaper lacks access to the trait and the condition fits thematically with the class style perfectly. There are other technical considerations too wordy to need spelling out.

Additionally, some felt it would be an interesting place to work in a modifier, and I tend to agree. I personally would support the second option most, but the first option is easier, so I put both as this is intended to be more “easy” solutions to problems without major reworks.

Issue 3: A few Shout touch ups.
a) “Your Soul is Mine!”: Slight touch up on healing amount. While I understand there is a Life Force component, the skill falls short of being competitive against a traited CC (and often a non-traited, considering the additional health gained in addition to damage removed from conditions). The skill falls just short to other short cooldown heals (Ether Feast, and others) that I don’t feel is made up for by the Life force alone, especially in smaller scale battles. One possible solution would be to move more of the LF into the heal itself.

b) “Rise!”: Rise is almost perfect, yet AI and AOE still sells the skill short. My suggestion to bring it in line with other similar 50% absorption effects (Guard, Phantasmal Defender/MD, Bulwark Gyro) is to reduce the Max duration of the minions to 20 seconds, but reduce the cooldown from 40 seconds to 30. I feel this is important because the skill is very useful to survive heavy pressure that is common for Necromancers to face, but the cooldown is long and the pets die quickly or are easily kited. A more frequent button press with no other practical gains would make it a more well rounded skill and fit better against other similar skills.

c) “Chilled to the Bone!”: The change to Deathly Chill, I feel, left this skill feeling quite a bit less impactful, especially when you consider the chill duration nerf it took along with the damage loss. I think it’s time to make the leap to a shorter cooldown to allow it to function as a more frequent CC than the old Chill spike it once was. I suggest:
- “Chilled to the Bone!”: 1 Second cast, 60 second cooldown. Damage and freeze enemies around you inflicting 4 seconds of chill and stunning them for 2 seconds. Gain 1 stack of stability for 8 seconds per target struck."

Closing notes: I realize there are a lot of other issues with Necromancer and Reaper, many of which are very well known and noted. Unfortunately, a lot of other issues require deeper investigation and more development time, which is not the point of this thread. I just wanted to get out a few to-the-point changes that could get us out of our slight rut (mostly funneled into signet builds or corruption builds, lack of diversity and slight help for Power builds via diversity).

Please, let me know what you think, like, dislike or would just like to add. Thanks a lot, Reapers and Necromancers.

Let’s not keep killing play styles due to improper balance… Vipers do WAY more damage than Mercenaries (which aren’t that tanky, just a bit), the reason hardly anyone runs vipers is because there is so much removal and people get blown up by power damage without some toughness…

In reality there is a relatively healthy mix of build types, removing this Amulet serves no purpose other than trying to remove conditions from PvP because people can’t wrap their heads around them. Sorry, but this is just silly now…

Brokensunday.4098:

change it’s name to brain freeze and make it apply torment and confusion

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Brainfreeze/first#post3182686
Lol all that time ago.

Lily.1935:

how about rename it toxic chill and make it afflict poison. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Toxic_Chill And increase poison duration.

I already suggested that, Karl McLaine said they didn’t want DC to have any additional utility, its intention was purely offensive.

1. 2 bleeds is viable, but it’s boring and potentially a fairly high burst potential (though with longish cooldowns and visibility when it’s coming). It’s not a bad way to handle it.

2. The burst with burns is too high. A dev said they toyed around with using Burning but combos like Rs5→4 was too devastating. I tend to agree.

Personally:
I think 2 torment for 8 seconds is the best idea. For one, Necromancers deserve more Torment access and a bitter cold sounds fairly tormenting. It does good damage, but does more with an enemy playing bad/has counter play for the enemy. Lastly, due to the nature of the Rs5→4 combo stunning initially, it helps curb the initial burst of the combo by nature of movement prevention, while still remaining fully impactful in normal play.

In general, 2 torment for 8 seconds makes the most sense and supports comboing with Fear (our other niche) to secure burst damage.

That’s my two cents.

I know this might sound farfetched, but they should consider base-lining the Soul Marks LF (and rename the trait for the unblockable portion). Non-Soul reaping builds lack LF pretty heavily. This would increase diversity and quite possibly reduce the common-place of having unblockable marks in the first place. It’s too necessary right now to have that ranged LF generation.

You might see a mix of Unyielding Blast/Decimate Defenses (a nice way to support the fading Power Necromancer) or possibly some classes to give up SR to take Curses/Spite/Reaper.

Similarly, I think the LF degeneration should be baselined as 3% per second (rather than 4 natural) and change Vital Persistance to 20% Shroud ability cooldown and -33% degeneration.

Just saying, these two changes would greatly increase diversity with very little effort and risk at making anything unexpectedly over powered, and unblockable marks would become less common.

Evan Lesh.3295:

ronpierce.2760:

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you want?
Is it standard models?
The type of matchmaking?
Is it the map selection? Now that the maps are updated, is this still an issue?
Do you want to climb the ladder until the the season resets?

The ladder and match making would be nice.

I feel like 24/7 ladder would create a lot of burnout. Plus there wouldn’t be time for big balance patches to settle before the season starts.

Regarding matchmaking, it seems that two camps are developing. What about ranked matchmaking do you prefer over unranked?

As for ranks, it’s mostly the rewards I miss. I can’t speak for burn out, a match is a match, but one has more reward potential, but maybe that’s just me. As for balance, I was actually referring to a “Ranked” off-season, sort of a test bracket. Might even be a good way to help settle some of the dust early to prevent some of the problems early S2 had. A ranked pre-season could be potentially GOOD for balance analysis, as it gives reason to keep up organized play and works out changes faster.

Match making wise, I prefer being teamed with people that match my MMR, good or bad, more than I prefer a “balanced opponent” approach. The problem though, is this type of MMR only really sorts itself out well enough with the ranks.

Evan Lesh.3295:

What about Ranked do you want?
Is it standard models?
The type of matchmaking?
Is it the map selection? Now that the maps are updated, is this still an issue?
Do you want to climb the ladder until the the season resets?

The ladder and match making would be nice.

It’s active, you don’t start with it, you can whiff it, you need to build up for it, etc. It’s an active maintenance buff to be exact.

That said, I feel the number is a little high, the pay off is certainly exceeding the risk involved by quite a bit. Seeing as how the healing is the same (correct me if I’m wrong?) as before but the ticks are per second, something tells me they didn’t think out the full change when they recoded it. Seems like a mistake of changing one part and not the other, but we’ll see.

Though, I don’t think it needs to be brough down to 1/3 as an oversight fix would indicate, I don’t think it’s that far overtuned. So hopefully we see some sort of reply before it’s changed.

Mungo Zen.9364:

I am glad that some players here are looking to try and turn a bad thing into the next good thing.

Yes, the combined changes to Necro make it look like there was an overall nerf to the profession, especially with changes to other profs getting some love. I understand that can be frustrating, I was pretty disappointed at first as well, but people will keep playing this prof and trying to make the most out of it, and someone like Sun Lian will come up with a brilliant build and all y’all will be back to being mostly happy.

So rather than repeatedly pointing out how Necro got nerfed, try expanding your minds and look for viable solutions. Or go play another Prof, I am pretty sure nobody would miss all that negativity.

Not all of us are being as negative as you think. Most of us are on the “right change, but a bit undertuned” boat. And it is. We’ve offered many subtle changes to make it viable again, but it gets a bit frustrating to deal with people who ignore real math and prefer to substitute it with unrealistic hypotheticals. To say it’s fine or especially some how a “possible buff” is just entirely wrong, even if you can get moments where the bleed stacks deal more damage than a single tick of chill would have, it’s still by FAR a numerical nerf.

This has even been admitted by Devs who said “We realize this is a large power swing, and we’re keeping an eye on the trait.” (Paraphrased).

Rodzynald.5897:

I do not find necro appealing to me as I am a righteousfag that plays only paladin type classes.
Yet I must agree, marks should remain unblockable… yet they shouldn’t trigger instantly as they are cast. About one, up to one and a half second of red circle arming time should do the trick, because for now if necro goes full condi in a team fight, it might end very unfortunate.

“Learn2dodge scrub” – Go ahead, dodge something you can’t see in a grand clusterkitten of various skills flying around + if necro stands on some safe spot behind you and drops dem marks (not to mention frame rate issues and sudden lag spikes).

I could bare a .5 to 1 second wait time if they made marks better. The skills aren’t all that powerful, even if unblockable and they’re still very easily destroyed by dodge rolls.

It’s just not a real easy situation to handle, since technically, staff isn’t all that powerful, it’s just semi-decent at AoE pressure, especially since the chill nerf, the staff potency has dropped off significantly.

With some buffs to Staff 2, a reworked staff 1 and have staff 4 remain instant, I could get behind a .5-1 sec trigger.

They could also make the marks on the ground larger and more differentiated, that’d help a lot.

It’s not realistic to stack 5 fresh chills every 8 or so seconds (in pvp) to even break even, let alone the lack of up-front condition damage lost, giving far more time to clear it before it becomes problematic. This was the right DIRECTION for PvE, though it still underperforms, don’t pretend this is done awesome new buff because no, you’re not stacking 10+ chills every 8 seconds, especially not reliably.

Do the actual math and realistic scenarios rather than some silly “you can do 10 chills!” logic, it’s just not sufficient.

That said, instead of buffing the bleed stacks directly (unless they wanted to bump it to 10 seconds or 2 bleed for 5 seconds, both would be greatly appreciated though I personally prefer torment to bleeds), I read a nice suggestion earlier, having your conditions do increased damage to targets with chill on them. That’d be a great way to handle it to encourage keeping chills up.

Thanks for your kind words. It’s workable, but still bad. At least they made adjustments in the right direction this time, it just wasn’t the right numbers exactly. If they’re willing to work with us and openly discuss it, we’ll get sorted out in no time. That’s better than I can say for some other classes/specs, at least.

Bhawb.7408:

Radu.1693:

Sorry 3.4k, with only 6 might using wanderer’s.

You got all 30 stacks of bleeding using just that trait alone?

Doubtful, at best RS5→4 should be 11 stacks of bleeding (5 ticks and 6 whirls), 12-13 if you have sigils and other procs. If this is a contest of who can stack the highest condition numbers with full preparation, no movements and no cleanses, I don’t think that’s a contest Necromancer wants to join in on. x.X

mrauls.6519:

ronpierce.2760:

Salamander.2504:

Sigil of blood doesn’t do damage or heal anymore, and sigil of leeching only heals.

I can confirm this.

What does it do now?

One doesn’t do anything and Leeching doesn’t deal damage when it’s consumed, it only heals you. This standardization thing they did bugged out many life steals, including Revenant’s trait life steal, which hits for like 2.1k atm.

Salamander.2504:

Sigil of blood doesn’t do damage or heal anymore, and sigil of leeching only heals.

I can confirm this.

Infect.2738:

Some good points. I personally could get behind 2 stacks of torment, but may need a small ICD in terms of pvp. That would allow some pretty high torment burst.

Its true this change/nerf did fix the pve chill bug.

Also still think power creep is quite high in the game.

The problem is, yeah, it’s tricky. Burst potential is there, but it’s otherwise garbage. If you buff it you run into the POTENTIAL condition spike, but let me be honest, even without an ICD, I really don’t think it’d be a major issue. There are already similar, if not worse, condition spikes out there. Having it spikey just means if it gets washed off, you lost all that damage, or they ate it all. If you start putting ICD on a proc that procs off another proc with a CD, you run into the issue of things just feeling horrible and unpredictable. I don’t think it’d be a big deal since the nerf to the whirl, that was my #1 concern, and still might be a little high, but outside of that ONE combo (RS 5→4) there’s no issue.

I’m just not sure having a single impactful burst combo is worth making a trait terrible over. Now, if they put a 1 sec ICD on it but removed the ICD on Chilling Darkness and other things like that, perhaps we could talk about it then. But having ICD on top of ICDs just feels bad, and frankly, I like building knowing whenever I do “x” I can expect “y” as a return. And seeing as how Root+Torch Ranger burst can do about the exact same thing as RS5+4, i don’t think it’s a big deal. It’s a burst combo every 26+ seconds, and usually VERY obvious. And as it stands, the trait is objectively undertuned.

It’s an interesting debate, but I do think Torment is the way to go, at least it has the potential of counter play (not moving) while shrugging it off, and while stunned in RS5 you’re also not moving, so that’s a little mitigating factor compared to upping the Bleed count.

So this is what Karl said on Reddit to me:
“Deathly Chill previously caused every necro that was running this trait to fight with one-another, being that the damage would only apply when your own chill stack was active. This change allows the reaper to apply attrition damage to enemies through chill. The reason it’s bleed and not something like poison is that this trait is intended to be a DPS add instead of another debilitating effect.”

That said, I hope it ends up as 2 Torment for 8 seconds.

Krysard.1364:

What about 2 stacks of torment? It even makes sense tbh

Either 2 stacks of torment for 8 seconds or 2 stacks of Poison for 6 seconds is ideal. Both would benefit PVE in the right ways, Torment would be more damage for PvP while Poison would be less bursty and instead have more Utility.

I tend to feel like the utility and less burst is smarter, especially as we recently lost some utility via chill uptime, and doesn’t lead to situations where people get loads of torment stacks and kill themselves by running around like an idiot (noob trap).

Both work, I still think Poison is a better bet. Bleed is stupid.

1 torment would be a bigger hit on DPS than 1 bleed in PVE, and probably wouldn’t make it much better for PVP.

My personal feelings on this is 2 stacks of Poison (6-8 seconds, probably 6) would be the best all around change to make it worth using in PVE (at least more so) and be useful in PVP.

After some math and consideration, I think a trait such as:
“Tainted Ice: Inflicting Chill also inflicts 2 stacks of Poison for 6(to seconds.”
Is the best route. It reduces the required chill application to break even every 8 seconds from about 5 to around 2.5 which is more reasonable, I find. And with the reduction of chill duration and loss of utility in that sense, the added poison would give back a bit of utility and give more Poison to the necromancer, a niche it should also be fairly heavy in, in my opinion.

So that’s my current thoughts as I consider things.

Aesa.4819:

Mega Skeleton.8259:

To be fair, from a raiding perspective, the chill was terribly designed and I was proponent of chills adding another condition like poison instead of making chill do damage, because of chills inherent limitations…extremely often the chill trait was not actually dealing damage because of how it worked in raids.

Yes I also realize this problem, but you have to agree that the replacement we got now is pretty terrible..

It didn’t have to be. They just did it poorly. 2 stacks of Torment for 8 seconds, 2 stacks of bleed for 6, or some amount of confusion (don’t feel like doing the numbers for it) would have been great for both PVE and PVP. Would have nerfed up-front dmg in PVP but rewarded proper bursting and landing skills, and in PVE it’d be an all around fix to the problem at hand. The biggest issue is that their replacement was just poorly tuned.

Bhawb.7408:

If it was torment, no problem. If it didn’t require 4-5x the chill investment to get the same damage, might be okay. If they didn’t go and massively nerf our chill at the same time, probably fine. But none of those are true, and I’d be surprised if it isn’t really bad now.

Well it certainly isn’t better. Looks like they went with the general theme of my “Brainfreeze” idea but instead of torment or confusion went with bleed. I could see why confusion would be unfavorable for some, but Torment is right up our alley and Reaper has fairly little. This would have been an awesome way to throw Torment back into the mix. Maybe they were trying to make Reaper work better with Curses. Who knows…

All that said, I think 2 stacks of torment for 8 seconds would be great or 2 bleed for 6 seconds.

I don’t mind the change, its a smart one in some ways, especially PVE. My only things are:
1. I wish they’d make bleeds a bit stronger in general.
2. The trait instead gave 2 bleeds for shorter time.

I wouldn’t mind then.

Because people can’t handle the truth.

I’m probably going to be the odd-ball out here, but I actually don’t like the Treb, but I see the appeal for it. It’s effective, but I don’t think it’s an overly fun mechanic. I avoid Khylo as much as i can.

Basket of Boxes.1976:

For all the people surprised at the price wasn’t this skin originally free?

I realize that. But they could have just as easily made the price anything they wanted. It was free in 2012, but has since become an exclusive artifact of old events, and they know a lot of people wanted it.just because it was free 4 years ago, doesn’t mean they couldn’t cash in on it now, and they did, but rather modestly IMO. It’s still cheaper than some of the other 1-piece items that end up in the gem store.

I do… I love stronghold. Way more than Conquest…

I’d prefer 2v2 / 3v3, but I mean if i had to chose between the two…

jessiestiles.9437:

I figured updrafts was your plan for getting back up after you fall.

They could, depends on direction. I’m more in favor of disallowing the falling/death in general. I think the map could be interesting just to be bigger and have gliding as part of the mechanics of the map, not necessarily directly as a recovery. Especially if you consider using the Sky hammer as a leap platform for mobility.

Could be handled fairly easily, just by making the “floor” of the map instant death like in HoT zones, with the intention of staying on the map when you fly from the sky hammer, and make the map larger in general with a few other areas to use the glider.

It probably wouldn’t be necessary/useful unless the map was larger though. And in this case, the only people dying from flying off the map would be people who did so on purpose themselves.

jessiestiles.9437:

Well no. It didn’t happen in 30 seconds because you had to master updraft and then lean techniques. And you didn’t have to learn getting longbow shot off the side of a building.

Who said it needed updrafts and leaning? I don’t really care either way, but simple gliding alone could be interesting.

Edit: Side note, might be an interesting way to get non-payers into wanting to buy HoT, experiencing gliding.

Serophous.9085:

now we will have a plethora of black mage cosplaying asura’s running around…

Excuse me? I resent that statement…
Er… no, actually, I pretty much agree…

jessiestiles.9437:

ronpierce.2760:

jessiestiles.9437:

R O C.6574:

jessiestiles.9437:

@ ROC I said at the start the start of the thread the ability to get knocked off the edge of the map is funny. You know it’s your own fault for getting too close to the edge. And I asked for no railings, and no change to instant death on the map edge. The abuse is specifically refering to the holes where mesmer can easily pull you into them, or skyhammer platform where you can get feared off by warriors. Their fear is unblockable, disables all your skills and lasts for 3 seconds. On that small platform you can be in the center and get feared off and there’s no way to avoid it.

Add gliders. Problem solved

They can’t because people who don’t have HoT won’t have them.

I mean, that’s not REALLY an excuse. Could just have them exclusively on for sky hammer for all players.

The wings still need some practice to get the hang of them. If people can’t use the jump pads I doubt they would pick up gliding from the odd game of skyhammer if they happen to get knocked off. It’s just a bad idea.

People will master gliding in about 30 seconds, far sooner than they master actually playing the game. The problem with jump pads in their current iteration isn’t just “know how”, sometimes they just don’t freaking work. Moreso with latency. But if they just shot you straight up with less control, but you could glide afterward, it would be 10x more intuitive and useful than how it is now. And more fun.

jessiestiles.9437:

R O C.6574:

jessiestiles.9437:

@ ROC I said at the start the start of the thread the ability to get knocked off the edge of the map is funny. You know it’s your own fault for getting too close to the edge. And I asked for no railings, and no change to instant death on the map edge. The abuse is specifically refering to the holes where mesmer can easily pull you into them, or skyhammer platform where you can get feared off by warriors. Their fear is unblockable, disables all your skills and lasts for 3 seconds. On that small platform you can be in the center and get feared off and there’s no way to avoid it.

Add gliders. Problem solved

They can’t because people who don’t have HoT won’t have them.

I mean, that’s not REALLY an excuse. Could just have them exclusively on for sky hammer for all players.

There is nothing wrong with having support, something OTHER than glass in this game… kitten … Support Ele can still be killed (usually) by focus fire, which is a bit different than previous iterations of Elementalist and Bunkers, and they do next to zero damage.

Support is allowed to exist. The problem was Bunkers who can live forever AND deal damage (AKA Bruisers being too strong). Nothing about Ele support is inherently wrong or bad.

morrolan.9608:

ronpierce.2760:

This is very simple, its not a reward track. It’s a rank system, and technically works. Sapphire/Ruby should have your most average players with a close-to 50% win rate in that division, making it hard to work out of, but not fall too far back, too.
.

Up to ruby it is actually essentially a reward track.

Yes, I realize early parts are like a reward track. I think that is their attempt to make it “somewhat” fun for everyone. But that doesn’t mean everyone “deserves” to have Legendary. I feel the way it is set up is actually very generous… It’s still prestigious to get to Legendary, but most people can at least make it to ruby if they put in the time and effort, so they can at least wrack up some of the smaller rewards. That’s perfect if you ask me. The problem with Leagues right now is entirely entitlement, unfortunately, the game has pushed that entitlement because “it’s a casual game” and “everyone can be a hero”. They finally added ONE thing that pvpers can use for a little ounce of prestige and PVErs and entitled solo-quing casuals feel they MUST be able to reach legendary or it shouldn’t exist at all… I hate to come off as harsh, but why?

The only valid excuse/complaint I see currently is that the PVE legendary back piece isn’t in the game yet. And I agree, that’s annoying, but beyond that, it’s ONE prestigious thing in the game… Just let it be…

This is very simple, its not a reward track. It’s a rank system, and technically works. Sapphire/Ruby should have your most average players with a close-to 50% win rate in that division, making it hard to work out of, but not fall too far back, too.

PVErs need to get out of PVP, and ANet need to hurry up with the Legendary Fractal Back piece already, so people don’t feel so entitled to be in PVP for their PVE item. The prestige needs to stay, PVErs need to have a reason to not be in PVP for an item, it’s really as simple as that.

I actually like the idea of making the hammer somewhat of a weaker Tranquility. Like if it blasted all 3 spots and neutralized the enemy-controlled nodes and knocked everyone off of it, and was unavoidable (as far as the knockback/damage goes) but happen more frequently. I think that could be really fun. Leave the damage and knockback though, so it assists people pushing new nodes.

That, or alternatively, a 4th point. Part of me is dying for a map with 4 points just because i think it could be curious. Especially if the special 4th point was the larger of the areas and gave points quicker than the other nodes, so one more worth fighting for, but more opportunities to fight around (controlling outside nodes instead). I think SWtor successfully had a map like that, but it only had 1 center main node and 2 supporting nodes. Could be a really cool way to shake up strategies.