While at first, I was sckeptical of the power of this trait, even synergizing with Blighter’s Boon, I don’t think either one needs a nerf. Chilling Force is conditional enough and the Might short enough that I can’t really see a situation when it would be OP. There are some impressive burst situations (like weapon swap to Hydromancy, then immedietly jump into RS and Spin2Win), but for actual sustain, it only works out to be a nice supplement.
Completely agree. Its only really providing some burst synergy in PvP. In PvE its balanced because other classes can do better and we deserve something nice for a change.
Why couldn’t they have just stuck with the 20,60,80 trait books and left hero points for elite specialization… I also haven’t made a new character since the NPE was released, wasn’t going to bother with that train wreck.
I have 3 mains, 2 of them have 100% map completion, the other only has 35%. I have 10 alts, who have roughly 10-30% map completion.
This is honestly really annoying. Why would they lock up content, especially something so important to the game that has been there from the start (and was readily accessible through the purchase of 3 trait books)
I think the saying, “don’t fix what isn’t broken” matches this problem.
If all of your alts have between 10-30% map comp then you probably wont have much of an issue. Most of your characters should have enough hero points to unlock everything right off the bat.
I didnt account for a 0.75 second aftercast though. That seems a bit excessive. And i doubt that is the actual aftercast.
Necromancers were all about turning enemy attacks against them and punishing them for attacking you in GW1. Reflect fits perfectly with that idea. Its an aggressive form of defence. And aggressive debuffing and magic is the very essence of the necro.
Anyway combo fields & finishers, active defence and projectile defence is something every class should have. They are core parts of the combat system. Necro is the one class that has a severe lack of multiple core aspects. And that is exactly why its so unpopular currently. They could give us loads of group buffing to improve the class but that would take away what the necro is. Unique debuffing is how they should do it and it keeps the class selfish while still benefitting the group.
They are addressing the issues in a very necro way. And i really like that approach. But they do still need to compromise on a few things. Such as giving us atleast 1 reliable blast finisher on a weapon. The option to trait for more active avoidance. And the ability to deal with projectiles as they are an incredibly abundant and powerful source of danger in GW2.
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I cant imagine they wont give it an icon when it ticks damage.
In the case of auto attack traits the extra effect will probably only be applied to the final hit of the chain.
Thematically reflect doesn’t make much sense on a necro. I’d be fine with projectile blocking though.
Thats not really true.
“Use lifeforce to create a reflective barrier that returns hostile projectiles.”
Which could easily fit on spectral wall. Plus there is that necro style reflect already in game (Toxic Krait reflect bubble). And then CPC is the perfect candidate for a projectile block.
“The target area is enveloped in a noxious cloud that poisons foes, leaves them weakened and corrodes hostile projectiles.”
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Personally i would prefer they scrap the minion shout and replace it with a defence shout. So projectile reflect shout or something.
No matter what you do to “Rise!” its going to step on the toes of regular minion abilities too much. Even with jagged horrors its a bit much. Mainly for Death Nova fodder. But thats still taking a lot away from other minion skills. Jagged horrors or custom minions are the only options in my mind. But i still feel like it shouldnt exist at all.
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3 procs per second per target is also a nice idea. But that over nerfs it on single targets again. So i would say 5 procs per second per target. But then you may aswell just not have any ICD at all.
And i do agree. I dont think its OP at all. The chill is most likely going to be looked at because that will be strong on its own. And any reduction to chill will be an indirect nerf to this trait. Thus solving the problem in most cases. In other cases its probably justified for the reaper to get that many procs. Because it would require huge setup and investment to meet those ideal circumstances in PvP.
I was wondering what this thread was going to be about.
Fully agree. x)
Because the extra crit damage is more when you have buffs.
Obviously this will change and we might see blood magic become a standard line for the meta after the specs update.
Hes agreeing with my solution. Which basically means it cannot proc more than 5 times within a second. So it has an ICD of 5 procs per second. Kind of like how Chilling Nova is limited. Only instead of 3 procs every 10 seconds. Its 5 procs every 1 second.
You could be lazy and just run dagger warhorn and not bother with focus. Warhorn would be mandatory of AOEing and for opening so its not really being phased out. :>
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snip
But the point of this type of skill is to gain extra benefits by hitting more times in a set duration. Chill uptime isnt going to be that easy. So if you get say a 3 second chill on a foe then with a 1sec ICD you can only get 3 procs.
The idea of this trait is to hit as much and as fast as possible to gain as much might and lifeforce as possible. ICD’s break that concept. If the trait didnt have a requirement such as target needs to be chilled. Then i could maybe side with your suggestions.
And calling the use of fast attacks to gain extra benefit an exploit is rather extreme. Im pretty sure thats an intentional functionality of the traits design.
I suggested in the other thread to give an ICD of 5 procs per 1 second with 5 second duration. This prevents over procs when dealing with groups of enemies. But still allows you to gain a good amount of extra procs on a single target if you use fast multi hits while the foe is chilled (and this requires some effort and investment to do so).
I understand this kind of solution is probably something you consider in the same line as yours. But i got the impression you were only thinking of compensating with the number of might stacks generated and the duration. Its important to suggest a working example when giving solutions. And dont just be vague. With all your previous suggestions i pointed out faults which would ruin the trait so I couldnt possibly side with you.
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I dont think you’ve understood anything ive said. An evade is completely different to a stack of might. The scaling sustain of Blighters Boon + Chilling force can be restricted in other ways without butchering our might generation.
What I’m saying is, similar to evades, they can be be made perfectly reasonable 1v1 with a ICD per target with benefit against a group. It all depends on your perspective. The only difference between my view and your view is you think if the number is reachable then it should be reachable 1v1 too, and that’s not the case.
And the problem with this is we already have a trait ingame that doesnt have this 1v1 limition. Forceful greatsword works well solo but stacks up even faster when cleaving. Warrior is already a superior class and can even share this might when using another trait. Necro is selfish but currently not self sufficient. Chilling force will finally make us self sufficient buffwise. And you want to restrict it just because of a sustain trait.
Its not hard to see why im completely against this. PvE is necros biggest problem. And your suggestions effect one of our best PvE traits in a really negative way. Boss fights are a huge part of PvE. So 1v1 potential is important.
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Well it was previously dagger focus and warhorn. And we wouldnt use Lifeblast unless using DS build. But yes now we have GS for DS damage (assuming the damage calc in DS remains the same). So it just means the alternative set will be an opener set or a utility set. Which means dagger focus in most cases. Use warhorn 5 before you get into combat then equip focus. Start fight by casting focus 4 and start your GS, RS rotation.
I dont think you’ve understood anything ive said. An evade is completely different to a stack of might. The scaling sustain of Blighters Boon + Chilling force can be restricted in other ways without butchering our might generation.
The only type of ICD i would accept is one that allows 5 procs per seconds maximum (almost the same as having an ICD of 0.2 seconds). That way on a single target you can still gain 5 procs if you use fast hits (which requires effort and management of fast hit attacks). But you dont get an over abundance of might against groups for ridiculous Blighters Boon procs.
Good points Anubis. I would rather not lose might stacking outside of DS now that we are finally getting the option for it.
But i also really dont want to see it become an Empowering Might clone in 1v1’s and boss fights.
Because thats what they did with Empowering Might right? No its been left as a trashy trait which is only good with AH. AH was the problem but Empowering Might got the restriction.
Empowering might is a 1 sec ICD, not per target. Huge difference. Also, how they balance is wildly different than whether one style is better or more practical than the other. A counter, as I said, is siphons which suck because they could “theoretically” get out of hand. This is a better WAY to handle it, but would need to be properly compensated as well.
And i said that it destroys the trait in 1v1’s. Because in 1v1’s it will essentially be the same as Empowering Might.
We dont know how Reaper’s Might will change. It might only generate might on the final attack of the chain in RS. Having both these traits gives us different choices on how to get our might.
If we can take Chilling Force then we can take Bitter Chill at the same time and get our vuln and might. Meaning we have a free 3rd spec for anything we like. Whereas the other option means we need Soul Reaping for unyielding blast to get vuln. Reapers Might to get might and then we can take decimate defences. But we no longer have the 3rd spec available to choose anything else.
That said I would not mind Chilling force becoming a 10% trait if Reaper’s Might generates might on every hit of the auto attack chain.
If the might absolutely must be nerfed. Then the only nerf i would accept is duration nerfs. But even that is bordering on making the trait worthless for sustained might generation.
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Because thats what they did with Empowering Might right? No its been left as a trashy trait which is only good with AH. AH was the problem but Empowering Might got the restriction.
ICD’s and even ICD’s per target are a lazy way to fix the issue.
Yeah. Its mostly guesswork. I dont predict dagger to beat gravedigger spam. But i do expect it to be a better pure damage auto above 50% health. But we might end up auto attacking in Reapers Shroud instead. And never need dagger again except for the immob and maybe lifeforce.
And destroys its use in 1v1’s. Not in favour of that at all.
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Well the sustain of lifeblast with lifesteal is almost non existant. A slight increase in proc rate improves potentially it quite a lot depending on the rate increase. Simply because you can get much more health back before you run out of lifeforce. Its by no means a big gap closer. Its very slight. But thats fine.
Im also fine with leaving it as it is. I still think I would prefer faster weaker Life blasts for other reasons unrelated to lifesteal though.
I’m just worried too many people including the devs are theorycrafting for situations with 3-5 enemies and not thinking about how we’re able to perform in a 1v1 effectively.
This is my big worry aswell. I would much rather we actually get to experience the class before it gets overnerfed internally. Because its realistic situations that will determine whether a trait or skill is too strong or not.
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They also said chill durations are too strong at the time of the stream. Nerfing those will be an indirect nerf to the trait. And probably fix most of the issues.
@Bhawb
My opinion is that Chilling Force is fine. But Blighters Boon is too strong under ideal situations. You could easily just remove the life force from Chilling force if the lifeforce synergy is too much. But im certain the might generation itself is fine as long as chill is sufficiently difficult to maintain on groups of enemies in PvP.
Its not about equalising. Its more about just closing the gap slightly. Which is why id prefer they left it as it is. And increase the proc rate in base DS.
If anything its the might that is fine. But the lifeforce is too much in optimal situations.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forceful_Greatsword
Perma chill is not going to be as easy as everyone is making it out to be in PvP. In PvE this might generation is fair. A warrior can generate perma 25 might and share it when using phalanx. Necro is a selfish class. I feel we should atleast be able to self buff ourselves effectively. In a group we probably wont use the trait because warrior will stack might for us. But it finally gives us a good solo might trait that isnt dependant on camping DS which forces us out of using DS for defence.
This is finally a trait that allows us to become strong self sufficient self buffers. But we have to make sure we can produce perma chill to pull it off. Which means spamming auto attack (weak). Or relying on high cooldown chill abilities.
Making it cooldown per target just means you nerf it in the place its not as strong. Its only over the top strong because of all the AOE. Against a single target its balanced. Any kind of ICD will make it terrible for single targets and we will get another ruined trait on the same level as empowering might.
And again the place where it might be too strong is when cleaving large groups of mobs that are chilled. But how likely is that scenario in gametypes that it causes balance problems in (sPvP and WvW)? Not very likely. Unless you just popped your 120 second cooldown elite shout or your 30 second cooldown RS #5.
They said they are probably toning down the chill duration on various skills. That would probably be enough of an indirect nerf for it to never be a problem in PvP. And in the cases where its strong it would probably be justified due to the setup. If you are lucky you can GS #5 pull a group into some chill field and AOE for 25 might. But thats going to drop off after 5 seconds during the burst and then your enemies will escape, cleanse and avoid the damage. Its a burst option in PvP. Nothing more.
tl;dr
You guys are focusing too much on the theoretical potential. And ignoring the realistic power of it in average situations. You have to chill your foes and then get lots of good hits in. But the class is still slow.
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I often use them for certain fractals because they are a lot cheaper than sharpening stones.
If im not mistaken there was a lot of other changes at the same time. It was a big balance patch. It was done because people agreed that it was enough. And it makes sense for consistency sake.
Well i worked out the coefficients. And we have stream footage to get estimations of cast times and aftercasts. If gravedigger spam is about 1.5 seconds (cast time is 1.25 seconds) repeating then its a coeff per second of 1.35. Which isnt far off lava font + fireball. But then ele has a lot more damage modifiers.
Yeah i personally would rather avoid ICD’s on things like this. Another solution is just to change base DS slightly. So reduce the lifeblast cast time and damage to allow for greater procs per second but retain the same damage per second. Because there is also the issue of reapers might and unyielding blast being better on Reaper aswell. Simply because of faster proc rate.
Another band aid solution would be to increase the number of hits on life transfer dramatically. But keep the total damage and duration the same.
The might nerf was enough to warrant a reset. Yes many of those records could still be beaten. But it didnt really seem fair. It was such a big change to damage and balance that it really didnt make sense not to reset it.
Oh? This is a little disappointing. That trait seems like a really good one. I can understand that 5 vuln stacks might be a bit too much. But I would like to see it remain as a no ICD vuln stacker equivalent to blind exposure in functionality.
I don’t know the exact form this trait will take, but I strongly pushed for it to retain no ICD.
Good to hear. Hope they listen. I think a lot of us have been stressing our resentment for ICD’s on these sort of traits. They totally destroy traits. Just look at empowering might on the guardian.
If only bone minions werent so clunky to use for blasts. That would be one less problem.
Even so im not sure thats a good idea either way. Unless it accounts for all previous records a guild has submitted. But then there are a lot of old records that arent on our database because they were eventually beaten.
For example DnT and rT have loads of records. But most werent eligible for the all time leaderboard when the switch happened. So they arent in the database. But they were top records in various previous metas.
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Unrelated but important. I think its about time we get a sticky for all things gw2dungeons.net. Explaining what the site has available (guides) along with a bit of info about records. Could also be useful for people to link their record submission threads as reminders to the admins. Or give admins a place to check to make sure they havent forgotten anything.
Ill leave it as restricted. Hopefully we will get this particular issue voted on in the next week or so.
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Some of the bigger guilds havent taken part in records for quite some time. Now for some that might be due to the rules. But even so i dont think its fair to give double votes to certain guilds.
- They will not be keeping Bitter Chill or a number of the other overzealous vulnerability applying traits that they’ve added as they are come release. This will, however, get a bit better in HoT regardless so that’s good.
Oh? This is a little disappointing. That trait seems like a really good one. I can understand that 5 vuln stacks might be a bit too much. But I would like to see it remain as a no ICD vuln stacker equivalent to blind exposure in functionality.
Anyway, I can speak for ANet a little bit here when I say that they agree with Spoj’s opinion, and they are currently making some changes I think you guys will like. The core reason we haven’t yet seen so many of these changes is, really, because of PvP/WvW. It has nothing to do with the class’s design. Necromancer is very strong in WvW and has incredible burst DPS in PvP. They don’t want to create Dhuumfire Mk. II and want to gradually try to phase the buffs in. Regardless, the forum specialists have been pushing them on the matter of the Necromancer, and that is what inspired the Blood Magic re-rework and a few of the other changes, so stay tuned.
Very encouraging to hear. And the lifesteal aura is a good piece of evidence supporting that.
Thats what ive said aswell. The mantra has no effect. He could have easily cast it a minute later.
Yeah thats why it needs to be different to other minion skills. It cant be too strong to always replace one of them. But it needs to have value of its own. So weaker minions which cleave/aoe to deal with groups. And can still be used as death nova fodder.
If they are set on only using already existing minions then it has to be all jagged horrors. Or all jagged horrors except for the 5th one being a bone minion. That way you never get equal or more of the same type of minion than from a regular minion skill.
Lol so many people completely missing the point.
Dragonhunter is probably going to be the only elite spec which translates that well as a dual profession.
The problem with that is that single shout is better than any regular minion summon skill when dealing with multiple opponents.
Saying Reaper is Necro/warrior is a bit naive. There are 3 classes with shouts and a greatsword. Warrior, guardian and ranger. Could just as easily be considered Necro/guard.