1) No, even with the old chilling darkness this skill sucked.
2) I like that it doesn’t kill me when I use it.
3) I’d suggest changing it to a chilling well, making it destroy projectiles and/or massively reducing the cd.
Grim Scepter is the best skill in the game, if you don’t use it when you lich you are using lich wrong.
This pretty much covers everything. Really good list of changes. Can’t say that I disagree with any of them.
Really? Because I don’t fully agree with myself on Cultist’s Fervor. I’m still debating that one because it might just be too powerful or too weak. I’m not sure which and alternatives would be interesting to hear on how we might want to affect utility while in death shroud.
Concepts are more important than numbers. Could always be tuned later. If I had to come up with something else there it would be a damage modifier for pve. 10-15% extra damage on skills that generate life force would be a big buff to our pve builds without being OP in pvp.
I also tend to think gluttony should be baseline because it is boring. Then they could make piercing on LB default and move the vuln trait to the minor slot. Maybe introduce another damage modifier in it’s place, or just the one suggested above.
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This pretty much covers everything. Really good list of changes. Can’t say that I disagree with any of them.
The class with the lowest mobility and team support should be the strongest in combat class.
A class with high mobility and evasion should not be nearly as strong in actual combat as a necromancer.
Necro needs to be the strongest in combat class because this should be balanced out by a lack of ability to disengage. A thief, mesmer or engineer should always struggle when going toe to toe with a necro because they have the ability to disengage whilst a necro does now.
Thoughts on how necro could be made the strongest in-combat class, as it should be based on logical balance. I suggest some sort of siphoning buff would be a good start.
You are forgetting tankiness. Necros are tanky and as such, even if they lack mobility, will be always be below the squishies in combat.
There are a lot of really squishy necro builds that would be viable if necros had better active defense. Especially if they introduced sinister into pvp. Anet’s goal in this game was to make as many classes fill as many roles as possible. There isn’t really a good reason not to give some buffs to the limited mobility necros can get from shroud 2, walk, and wurm.
I don’t think that much needs to get nerfed though. Burn needs to go down like 10% damage, bleed might need to go up like 10% damage. Other than that conditions are fine. Mesmers need a damage nerf, but nothing outrageous. Again, 10% on a few skills at most. Eles are too tanky for me at the moment as well, but again a few small shaves.
Necros don’t succeed in high tier pvp because most of their skills and in fact the whole class has far too much counterplay. We are supposed to be weak to cc chains, but right now we get utterly destroyed by them. The only things we bring that are comparable to every other classes best stuff are the two damaging wells, SOL, Plague Signet, Plague, staff, CB, and a few of the DS skills. Every other weapon, utility, heal or elite is subpar or down right buggy in some way.
At the same time, it is hard for anet to justify buffing us because we have so much health, condition transfers, boon corruption, and can be intimidating to more casual players who still don’t know how to use active defense and offensive pressure effectively.
A quick list of the utility changes that I think necros should get.
Well of Power: pulse a stack of stab to all allies, Make it a light field
Spectral Armor: 3 stacks of stab.
Spectral Wall: Reflects projectiles or grants 3 stacks of stab.
Minions: reduce all cast times to 3/4 second.
Flesh Wurm: either 2400 range on the port or make it instant cast
Spectral Walk: make character immune to movement impair for the duration.
Well of Darkness: Half the cd, or replace with a chilling well.
Corrosive Poison Cloud: Destroys projectiles
Spectral Grasp: Grants 5 seconds of retal.
Give us a few of these, fix corruptions, fix our heals, and fix up the poor weapon skills and necros would be in a good spot.
Your validation is that it wouldnt take a lot to change and that you would think it would make the classes better. My argument , which i apparently didnt have, is that the idea is short sighted because the opening post references 3 particular scenarios and doesnt factor in how the class as well as the class system would have to change to balance such a simple change as changing hp pool.
Every trait and ability on a class is balanced with the hp pool taken into account. You would have to not only change how some abilities function but also how they interact with other abilities on the class itself but also how it interacts with all the other classes in the game. You would also have to change the values on essentially everything the class does to account for its new survivability. Nerf heals, change cooldowns, remove or add trait interaction etc etc. And again this wouldnt be just on the one class but you would have to look at everything else it may turn out just a combo of a select classes can do everything extremely well when together.
They literally just reworked the traits and still have balancing to do on that, are now expanding the functionality of classes with elite specs ( which would have to be taken back to the drawing board because ), and so much more. Its a small change but it have effect on everything. It would literally be unwise from anets point of view to have to re-balance so much than just shave and sharpen what they are already working with.
Now we can sit here, go over every trait and value in the entire game and come up with ideas but anet would have to allocate resources to changing and redesigning everything, hours of work, hours of testing hours of balancing and redesign. The reason people are replying with a huge slew of changes and just stating the idea is bad is because they can see the stupidly large amount of work it would be. It is literally something unfeasible and unwise to do from a player and anet point of view. Also it would mean instead of shaving stuff everything going back to the drawing board and a delay to the expansion and all that is planned.
tl;dr
The idea isnt bad per se , its just unrealistic or unfeasible to implement.
I don’t think it would take as much work as your implying. For instance, heals wouldn’t have to change much if at all in my opinion. Having said that, I understand your point and realize Anet would probably never do this. Thank you for responding without being a kitten.
I was joking .
Wow #I’mdumbsometimes. Sorry, sarcasm sometimes flies right over my head.
This could be cool, but is it really any less rng than plague sending? It would also be a trait built to counteract the brokenness of the current corruption trait. I would rather them just fix the corruption trait.
It was read but it still doesn’t stop the idea from being bad or needing to much re-evaluation of the entire class and the class system. Also your post only reference two specific builds for 2 classes and one specific match up for the other.
I don’t think you are seeing the bigger picture here. It would be better for anet to work with what they have and what they are adding than have to allocate more resources to redesign and change the three classes and potentially more just to balance out the change in HP pool.
Necros will never have adequate high tier representation without active defense, similarly they will continue to be the only class that can’t solo Lupi (not pvp related, but pretty sad). Also, if necros do get active defense all the beginner players that already struggle against the 40k health pool of necros will struggle even more. Basically, I can’t envision a scenario where necros have the tools they need to survive teamfights, without being massively overpowered against beginners. Similarly, glass ele builds will always be to easy to burst when they only have 10k base health because that isn’t enough to survive one burst anymore.
I don’t deny that this wouldn’t be easy to do and probably won’t happen. However, you say this is a bad idea without giving any arguments to my validation for this change. That is both rude to me, as well as being short sighted. I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, but when you say, “this is dumb, its obvious why, but I won’t address your points,” you are doing an injustice to yourself not me.
Edit: In an effort to not double post.
I think your all exaggerating how much would have to change for this to happen. Necros would need a ton of work, but that isn’t a change from where they are at now. Mesmers would need some damage and cc shaved which isn’t a change to where they are currently. Eles would need some of their sustain or damage cut, which isn’t different from where they sit currently.
Also, Toxsa I’m sure you as a competent player could pretty quickly in your head think of the changes that would need to happen. I could make a huge list, but I think most of the people on the forum who have actual thoughtful opinions could come up with a list on their own.
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This idea is bad because t would remove effectively 18k HP from necromancers and would also make elementalists and mesmers impossible strong. Would require to much re-evaluation to how a class is set to function.
Necros already need a ton of work, more than engis before june 23rd. The ele and mesmer changes would be accompanied by nerfs to sustain and/or damage. Did any of you actually read the first post? Do you really think I just want to flat buff to mes and ele and a flat nerf to necro?
Well necros have a ton of problems right now. People think they do good burst because they have wells and chill of death, but their actual damage outside of that huge cd burst is way lower than other classes. Similarly, condition necro builds do poor damage, but can still kill people with condition transfers. Also, necros have ok sustain right now, the problem is the complete lack of active defence that basically gimps necro, as well as our lack of serious group support. Basically, we need weapon and utility buffs.
Rangers and Necros aren’t even that bad as you’re implying. Both those professions just requires someone with an IQ of over 200 and determination of a Jesus. The other professions are much, MUCH easier to “master” or handle. But Rangers and Necromancers need an Einstein.
/flippant
The best necro and ranger builds right now aren’t that hard to play. This is really bad reasoning for why these classes are fine. You basically said, “you just need to be better than everyone else and these classes are good.” Before you say that isn’t what you meant, realize you said necros and rangers need an Einstein to be as good as other classes with a Joe.
The fact that I have one shotted fresh air eles on half the classes in this game is the problem. So is the insane amount of sustain they have, but with a medium health pool all of these could be balanced out.
Please don’t make it sound like fresh air has insane amount of sustain.
The issue is the fact ele has way too high survability when traited but very low base defense. I do think that the differences between hp pools are way too high and should be changed, but I don’t think we’ll ever see this happening.
Did I make it sound like fresh air had insane amounts of sustain? Guess I did. My point is that the survivability difference between fresh air and cele ele is to big. This is largely because they have bad base stats, but overpowered defensive traits. At this rate zerker ele builds will never be viable because of how strong tank ele builds are.
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Mesmers would be high tier health pool.
I dont see anything wrong with it..nope..not even a bit
I also think their damage, cc, and probably pu should get nerfed. Just because you can’t see 3 feet in front of the meta doesn’t mean no one else can.
LOLLLLLLLL
So basically you mean:
1. kill necro
2. buff Ele from God-mode -> Creator mode
3. buff Mesmer from cheese cookie cutter -> God ModeBalance lol…
Also please take a close look of all the passive procs Ele got from those broken traits now, and you’ll see the problem is never health pool.
1) Yeah, kill them so they can rise from the dead.
2) All gods die eventually
3) Sure.
The fact that I have one shotted fresh air eles on half the classes in this game is the problem. So is the insane amount of sustain they have, but with a medium health pool all of these could be balanced out.
Nope, you can’t do much about it. Good dodging, use of interrupts, and positioning helps, but necros are the one gw2 class with very little actual defence. If your playing with wells, I would wait till classes lock you down and try to burst you to counter-burst them as it often catches many players off guard.
If you really want to fix the problems with these classes, a good start would be to switch around their health pools. Necros would get the low tier health pool, along with a ton of buffs to active defence and damage, which are both terribly low. Necros actually have decent sustain right now, but, until they have tools to completely prevent damage, necros will continue to be second class citizens. This would also make the class less of a pain to fight against because it would be less of a wall of hp (which is where the misconception of necros being tanky comes from).
Eles would move to middle tier health pool. This would make it less mandatory to take 2 defensive traitlines. It would also allow anet to finally nerf the crazy amount of invulns, stab, and sustain eles have (just a little bit, not into the ground). No class should be able to chain 7 seconds of complete invuln, then 10 stacks of stab, all while having perma protection, and regen. It is just too much.
Mesmers would be high tier health pool. This would help them in the thief matchup and would be a buff to counteract the incoming nerfs to damage and chain cc that mesmers will/should get.
What are your thoughts on this?
Edit: I main necro, the first few posters aren’t seeing the big picture, but only the meta builds they play.
(edited by zapv.8051)
I do not play in high-end PVP. Why should I care?
I don’t know, but since you responded you clearly do care.
On to OP, yes it is completely absurd that necromancers have had 2 months in the meta over 3 years, and that rangers have had 6 months in the meta over 3 years. It doesn’t matter though, the anet devs don’t want to put in the effort to fix these classes, they will always be broken.
The previewed reaper greatsword had a #4 skill with damage + pulsing blind + pulsing cripple on 25 second cooldown.
Thats balanced.
Well of darkness needs to be better than that in its utility.
I honestly think because of that skill they should just remove well of darkness and replace it with a new well. I know people who have that aoe blind, but having skills that effectively do the same thing is kind of pointless.
The major problem in terms of the amulets is that most of them suck. No one is ever going to take half the stat combinations because they have no synergy (especially magis). There needs to be a condition version of maruader with condition damage, power, precision and vitality. More amulets with 4 stats, and more hybrid amulets.
Well of Darkness would literally need to be a 20-25 second cd for it to be worth it now. Even with the old chilling darkness it needed to be brought down to like 30 seconds.
Worst part is, the icd isn’t per target. It’s literally one 2 second chill per well of darkness, four or five per plague. Just when I thought they knew we needed scaling defense. Also, well of darkness is never ever worth it now.
I don’t feel oppressed, I just think the devs lack inspiration, and interest. Whenever Anet talks about the necromancer they always talk about things that necromancers can’t have simply because they are necromancers. I don’t even think it is lore related, they just think necros have to be devoid of boon support, cc resistance, burst, mobility skills and whatever else because that is their vision. Anet doesn’t seem to consider that their vision is neither what the customer base wants nor what will work in terms of balance.
I don’t expect necromancers to be giving out a tremendous amount of boons, but lacking the tools to solo dungeons, survive in teamfights, roam successfully, and be meta in every game mode is simply poor design. What Anet needs to do is look to the community for design ideas, and then put the effort into implementing these ideas (not that they don’t listen, but they need to do it much much more). Save the balance for afterwards, other classes feel awesome because they were built to be awesome not balanced.
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It was put in place so chill spam doesn’t happen when reaper comes out, which it would be. It would be ridiculous in team and 1on1 situations if they didn’t do this. Chill is arguably the most powerful condition in the game next to fear and easily the most soft CC in the game, even over immobilize. It’s extremely strong. Doing this will ensure that classes, even ranger (ranger has chill builds and major upkeep on chill as well) aren’t able to spam chill.
Fear, Chill>immob, you are insane. Sorry you lose all credibility with that statement, immob that prevents all movement and dodging is the strongest condition in this game by a huge margin.
It seems that whatever arenanet does to necromancers they start crying about nerf first it was the healing and then arenanet reduces vuln now its chill once they fix it, it will be dhummfire…stop demanding your class is unbeatable in pvp what else do you want
They took a trait that was OK/average/decent, and made it useless to balance a spec that hasn’t been released. Of course necros are mad. Also, necros have been bottom tier in pvp pretty much since launch, and still don’t make it on to most teams. Just because you can’t kill them in a 1vs1 when they start the fight with life force, or can’t dodge the massively telegraphed skills doesn’t mean they are op.
I imagine it’s more tuning for the reaper spec. They seem to like balancing around a spec that’s not even out. Is a confusing change regardless.
It’s actually funny, they were talking in that stream about nerfing the reapers damage, but spoj calculated the damage coefficients and they weren’t any better than the dagger auto in terms of damage. The reaper looks like it will be terrible right from the start. Without absolutely amazing damage (on par or just below d/d thief and staff ele in pve), reaper will be useless in pvp, big cast times would be tough to deal with in pvp even with a ton of damage, but the current damage coefficients will basically make it a weaker version of gs or rifle warrior.
Well they couldn’t have just given a buff to plague by making it not kill you, so they had to nerf one of the few synergies necros have. I want to note that necros only have 4 ways to apply blind in deathly swarm, signet of spite, well of darkness, and plague. Note that all of those except deathly swarm are on really long cooldowns.
You forgot corrupting fury.
Didn’t forget, didn’t include intentionally. Since boons are now a random conversion, that isn’t a reliable way to get blind. I guess I should have said the only reliable ways. If it isn’t reliable, it shouldn’t even be considered for traits like chilling darkness.
Lol. Sow moving, no range skill having, suffer from focus fire, chill weakened class that attacks slow as a fat kid with kitten strength is op? Lol, reapers will be lucky to even finish a greatsword attack chain and once again is being nerfed in a vacuum before it’s even released. Anet never has understood the Necro.
This is what annoys me most. They always have all these limitations on necro. Necro can’t have stab, necro can’t have vigor, necro can’t have invulns, necro can’t have finishers, necro can’t have mobility skills, necro can’t have most of the mechanics in this game for no actual reason other than their idiotic design (Yes anet devs when it comes to necro you are idiots, this nerf is a perfect example). The only other time I’ve ever seen someone say another class couldn’t have something was with guardian and glacial heart in the og trait preview, but guards ended up with that trait.
Every time they preview something good on necro, the devs come back with a nerf and say that it would have been op (previewed scepter trait, og SOV). Well guess what Anet, every other class has blatantly op things. 33 second cd on a 4 second invuln, completely op, elemental attunement as a minor, completely op, the amount of invulns and blocks guards can chain, completely op, the damage on shatter mes, completely op, all the instant cast skills that give boons, healing, condition removal, damage, completely op, but chilling someone for 2 seconds on one of a few blind skills necros have is over the top.
Now, necros did get some good sustain buffs in the last patch, and their are some op things on the class (chill of death, plague signet), but the fact is they are still decades behind eles, guards, and warriors as tanks because necros can do very little about chain cc immob (no way to stay on point or survive focus fire other than facetanking). Similarly, necros are miles behind mesmers and thieves as +1ers because their damage is very avoidable and they have terrible mobility skills. Condition necros only work because other condition builds exist, but necro actual condition damage output is pitiful as well.
Anet gave necros a few unique things in DS, condition transfers, and boon corruption, but necros give up almost every single defensive mechanic for those (stab, vigor, instant teleports, invulns, projectile reflect/destruction, evade weapon skills, aegis). Every other class is unique in this game, but they give up almost nothing to get their unique mechanics while necros give up almost everything to get their unique mechanics. Boon corruption and condition transfer are good, but they aren’t even close to good enough to justify this.
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Well they couldn’t have just given a buff to plague by making it not kill you, so they had to nerf one of the few synergies necros have. I want to note that necros only have 4 ways to apply blind in deathly swarm, signet of spite, well of darkness, and plague. Note that all of those except deathly swarm are on really long cooldowns. Also, well of darkness is now officially the worst skill in the game, a 50 second CD on a 5 second aoe blind you can walk out of.
This also means reaper will be completely bad. Slow attack skills, low damage per second (the actual damage coefficients are bad), and only minimal access to chill. This also points out how bad necros defensive skills are. Spectral skills, well of power, well of darkness, and cpc are all bad compared to other utility skills actual effectiveness.
The content just needs more variety, make conditions, debuffing, and support not required, but more valuable for some encounters.
Honestly, curses and soul reaping are probably the Necromancer’s best two lines right now.
They don’t need to be majorly changed. Some of the traits need minor fixes but that’s it (parasitic contagions should work in death shroud for example).
As for your suggestions.
(1) Lingering curse can remain a condition damage buffing trait, but base scepter needs mainline buffs. It’s not a good weapon.
(2) Master of corruptions should not o anything with cooldowns [that makes it a boring trait tax] but instead should give some sort of buff to the skills
(3) I like the ferocity aura, I have a feeling the revenant could get that.
(4) Spectral mastery is good, as is right now. But, if it has to be tweaked. I would remove the cooldown & duration extension stuff [these are trait taxes] and do something like you’re doing. Right now it bothers me that the trait doesn’t do much for spectral pull (the other spectral skills get a duration increase).
The problem I see with these trait lines aren’t that they don’t have good traits, but that some of the traits are still poorly implemented or placed.
1) Sorry I wasn’t clear, in my changes it would keep the condition damage. I agree scepter could use a buff, bleed into torment on the 2 skill, and condition application on the 3 skill. Maybe a base duration increase on the auto.
2) I dunno, I kind of like 26 second corrupt boon, but they could scrap all that and just replace it with my trait and leave it at master.
3)Yeah they probably will, that was more of an idea to buff necros in pve where we still don’t bring enough as far as I’m aware.
4) I agree that the trait is good now, and that it should effect the chill or the range on the pull. I like the duration extension a ton, and would either want that baseline or in the trait. My idea for the trait was to address holes in the necros kitten nal with stability (potentially 6 stacks every 40 seconds), escapeability (walk removing movement impairing conditions, and a reflect (cause every other class has one).
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As Zhaid said, I don’t think dhummfire is worth your rune set, and sigils. It works well in the build, but basing so much of your damage on life blast is risky. Sure you can destroy people faster, but taking other runes will help you out more often.
“Pulses 4 seconds of stability to you and nearby allies every 10 seconds while in DS (240 radius).”
Doesnt belong. in curses. Doesnt fit the line.
typo sorry
I like most of the changes but it’s a bit too much. So here are my remarks/concerns:
I would change is to make the piercing partially baseline to 3 targets and make unyealding increase the amount of hits to 5 for all shroud 1 skills (there is a thread about this).
Glutony may not have to become baseline.
Traited plague will still kill any condition damage user.
Furious demise will be fine if it’s self application only.
I actually think those traits would be fine considering how strong everything on other classes is now.
I don’t think there is a big enough difference between piercing 3 and 5 targets to warrant the trait for it. In WVW maybe.
IDK about gluttony.
I’m not gonna try to defend how much damage plague does to you, but it isn’t nearly as bad as everyone is making it out to be.
Furious demise was a typo. Making it aoe fury would help a ton in pve.
(edited by zapv.8051)
Curses and Soul Reaping have some problems currently with trait placement, and strength. To remedy that, I came up with a list of changes that would fix some of these problems.
Curses:
Furious Demise:
Pulses 4 seconds of fury to you and nearby allies every 10 seconds while in DS (240 radius).
Master of Corruptions:
Moved to Grandmaster, same effects as currently, but adds additional functionality to all the skills:
Terror:
Moved to Grandmaster tier, Master of terror merged into this trait.
Parasitic Contagion:
Moved to Master tier
Lingering Curse:
Moved to Master tier, additional condition duration has been reduced to 33% but now applies to all conditions applied while wielding a scepter. Keep the 150 condition damage.
Soul Reaping:
Gluttony:
Made Baseline
Unyielding Blast:
Moved to Adept tier minor trait, piercing effect made baseline.
Speed of Shadows:
Changed from 25% movement speed in shroud to pulsing swiftness every 7 seconds for 7 seconds in shroud.
New Trait, Deadly Soul:
Deal 10% extra damage to foes suffering from at least 3 conditions
Spectral Mastery:
moved to grandmaster. Adds additional effects to spectral skills
New Trait, Ferocious Aura:
Grants 150 ferocity to nearby allies in combat (360 radius)
Dhummfire:
Moved to Master Tier
Foot In the Grave:
Now pulses 2 stacks of stability every 10 seconds in DS.
Basically, this gives us some better offensive group support, projectile destruction, and a buff to condition builds overall. It also gives build defining grandmaster traits and viable trait options from all 3 traits at all three tiers in both trees. Condition builds would be either terromancers, weakomancers, or corruptomancers. I think this would also be a nice buff to our current pve builds, which are sadly still subpar.
(edited by zapv.8051)
As many others have said, the only condition that needs slight tuning right now is burning (I do mean slight, like a 10% shave or so). Even then, conditions still seem pretty weak because they have the same problems they’ve always had in teamfights. Basically, conditions are good in 1vs1 and 2vs2, but as soon as there are multiple eles, guards, and warriors around they become subpar because of the absurd amount of aoe cleansing. Now that classes have even more access to condition removal because of traits, I see no reason as to why you shouldn’t have 2-3 condition removals in every build. This, along with proper dodging and usage of your other defenses is plenty enough to deal with these builds.
Its all about AI builds being in the game period.
This is why no one is taking you seriously
Ah the old cherry pick a statement and disregard the rest.
Try again
Cherry picking assumes that I took what you said out of context, which I didn’t. Try coming up with an actual argument instead of just raging like a 3 year old child. I haven’t seen you give one reason as to why this build should get nerfed other than it being a minion build. Since that isn’t a reason to nerf something, you have made no valid points.
I’ll now explain why MM necro should not get any nerfs. First, it is only good, and I use that word loosely, at holding home point. Even then it gets outclassed by many other home point bunker builds. Second, it doesn’t deal high burst damage, and if you actually want to kill someone you need to chain cc skills in a good rotation which is the definition of skillful play (on the other hand I’ve seen terrible mesmers and thieves kill people simply because they do a lot of damage). Third, it isn’t that strong of a tank, only being able to hold a point vs 2 good players for a limited time, certainly not as long as bunker guards or the old turret engi. Finally, minions are awesome, and the MM necro build should at least perform well enough to take in an unranked game, which is where it sits currently. Certainly, this build that gets hard countered by any serious amount of aoes, and is close to useless in teamfights doesn’t need any nerfs.
Its all about AI builds being in the game period.
This is why no one is taking you seriously
I’m all for the 900 range. Dagger is already a melee to mid range weapon with 2 of it’s skills being 600 range, we don’t need two. Their is a massive hole in the ranged power options though. Axe 2 would be much better at that range, but would still probably need a damage buff. Axe 1 would still need a rework, or a massive damage buff.
I will probably drop curses, or blood magic so I’ll have blood magic, spite and reaper or spite, curses, reaper. Soul reaping is overrated, if I need more crit chance I’ll run decimate defenses. Other than that soul reaping only provides 5% damage, and vital persistance. I don’t think we will need vital persistance for a nice rotation, so really only the 5% damage.
Meanwhile Blood magic gives 2 party dps increases, warhorn cd, well cooldowns, and/or protection. Curses gives aoe weakness, fury, and extra condition damage (I don’t think the condition damage is negligable with 25 might). In pve, spite should be undroppable, it provides far and away more dps than any other traitline we have. Might, vuln, and a 15% damage buff are the best.
Honestly, I would try to avoid engaging on a longbow ranger unless you can get the jump on them. Anyone good at longbow ranger will never lose to a necro, but tips include:
1) Line of sight is probably the most powerful thing against longbow rangers, but since your running minions they will just pick off the minions if you do los them. Therefore, you want to line of sight behind your minions (i.e. stand so that your minions are between you and the ranger). This will make your minions eat the damage or cc which is preferable to you eating it.
2) Combine chill, cripple, and swiftness to get in range. If you find yourself in the open, your only real shot at closing the gap is with dark path, swiftness, and cripple.
3) Save your interrupts for greatsword, possibly rapid fire. Interrupting the leap can really prevent them from reopening a gap once you have closed it down. The other skills are pretty easy to avoid. Save a stun break for the 5 skill that applies a 1.5 second daze or stun.
4) Try to dodge point blank shot and hunters shot. These skills allow the ranger to maintain a gap between you and them. They become way harder to dodge at close range, but avoiding them can win the fight.
5)Pay attention to the pet. Most rangers suck at using the pet, but when you run into people who are good at it you’ll see why I say this. The immobilize, fear or knockdown are really a pain to deal with, but can be easily avoided if you watch for the huge telegraphed animations.
Overall though, this is the worst matchup for necros. No other build exposes the lack of gap closers, lack of projectile destruction, and huge cast times on the necro class quite like the longbow ranger. It’s a very bad matchup and you will have to outplay the longbow ranger if you want to win.
Staff is only useful in pve for ranged fights and tagging stuff. Any build trying to deal damage will be better off with dagger or scepter in both weapon sets. I guess if you want to play the mindless 1 spam DS build you should take it for increased weapon damage.
In wvw, it is good because it can tag a lot of targets, and has an aoe interrupt.
In pvp, I consider staff to be mandatory for pretty much any build. Being able to lay marks at your feet is really useful against stealthed opponents. Aoe fear is awesome for peeling, interrupting stomps, interrupting rezzes. You need at least two condition clears so staff covers one of those. Regen on mark of blood is massively underrated. Chill and poison are way stronger in pvp than any other gametype, and consistently have a huge impact on every single fight. The auto can build LF really quickly in teamfights or against mesmers.
Basically, you take staff in condition builds because it provides damaging conditions, condition removal, cc, and life force regen. You take it in power builds because there aren’t any other decent options. Axe gets hardcountered by anyone who can dodge, interrupt, or walk outside of 600 range, and scepter is a condition weapon (although it is still better than axe in power builds).
Basically, axe would need serious buffs for people to stop running staff as much. Until axe can reliably deal damage, and generate life force from range it will be miles behind staff in terms of effectiveness.
It has an AoE cap of 5 though. And it prioritises allied players over pets and minions.
Since it lasts 9 second though, shouldn’t it pulse to allies who don’t have the buff? For the first second it ticks it should apply to allied players. Then it will get to pets and minions the next second. Does it work like that, or does it just keep applying the buff to allies who already have it?
I vote make it a master tier. Move Spectral attunement/master up to gm. Make spectral attunement/master give added effects, reflect on wall, retal on grasp, stab on armor, movement impairing condition removal on walk. I also think master of terror should swap with the adept trait that gives 25% move speed in shroud then the 25% move speed trait should get changed to give permaswiftness.
That’s more about spectral skills then dhuumfire and despite possible new combinations I heavily doubt it fixes the incompatibility with condition necro.
Honestly, I don’t see dhummfire as build defining so I don’t think it should be GM. It does potentially make you change how you play because it forces you to use life blast more. Life blast spam is the last thing terromancer should be encouraging considering it is/was our most skillful build.
For that reason, I recommended a new trait that solves some of the other issues that necros currently have (bad stun breaks, no stab, no reflect). With the changes I listed the only problem would be whether to pick master of terror or soul marks (easy win for soul marks imo).
As others have said, reaper should do more damage than pretty much anyone, but it probably won’t. Even if the dps is only average for fully buffed parties, I think reapers will be extremely common in dungeons because they will be able to maintain a ton of might, 100% crit chance, and 25 vuln. Being someone who runs dungeons with pugs a lot I can tell you this isn’t hard to do, but rarely do I see a pug group upkeep 25 might and vuln (might much more common than vuln). Since reapers will be able to do this easily, I think they will very common in pug groups even if they aren’t meta in speed runs.
Another thing that worries me is that reaper will do these big hits that aren’t actually good dps. Gravedigger has a 1.25 second cast, so it will need to hit harder than life blast to even be worth using in boss fights. I’m also worried they will balance the damage assuming you have might, and vuln when all the big telegraph moves should just do amazing damage baseline.
Edit: wow I should read more.
OP, honestly open world pve is so easy I don’t think any complaints are warranted. If anything necros are one of the best classes in open world because of the massive amount of aoes available to tag everything for all the loot.
Also, dps calculations are done on fully buffed groups in optimal gear. This dps is generally calculated over 30 second fights, and is in no way indicative of what classes open world dps is. This is because might, group buffs, number of targets and fight duration are hugely variable in open world.
(edited by zapv.8051)
I vote make it a master tier. Move Spectral attunement/master up to gm. Make spectral attunement/master give added effects, reflect on wall, retal on grasp, stab on armor, movement impairing condition removal on walk. I also think master of terror should swap with the adept trait that gives 25% move speed in shroud then the 25% move speed trait should get changed to give permaswiftness.
Well here is what I would do.
Scepter 2 Grasping Dead: Make it 3 bleed stacks everywhere
Scepter 3 Feast of Corruption: Make it apply 1 stack of torment for 4 seconds for every condition on you foe. Retain life force gain, scrap excess power damage.
Swap Terror and the Scepter trait. Change the scepter trait to be 20-40% condition duration for everything while wielding scepter and 150 condition damage. Make terror apply extra damage (1.5X) to targets interrupted by fear. Either make dhummfire a 4 second burn, or make life blast fire at a rate of 1 per second (currently 1 per 1.4 seconds I think).
Other than that, maybe add an extra bleed back to staff or add an extra bleed on dagger 5.
(edited by zapv.8051)
I think you’re severely underestimating the damage boost we got. In Death Shroud with full might and vulnerability and proper condition duration gear and consumables, we can get upwards of 12,000 DPS. That’s higher than power’s average DPS — and it’s also pretty impressive when considering condition necromancer can now keep passive weakness on bosses since Corrosive Poison Cloud is worth using, while providing decent support and DPS to the group through Blood Magic.
Can I please see a video, some math, and/or a build for that 12000 number your getting?
Back to OP:
Could you give other examples where we have this anti-synergy you suggest? Two examples isn’t enough in my opinion to convince me all of our traits lack synergy. I could give two examples where curses does have synergy just as easily. Also, the patch has been out 2 days, so unless your doing some serious data analysis I can’t take your claims of double damage and half the ramp up time seriously. I think you’d be hard pressed to even know what build is best at this point.
Having said that, I like some of your changes, not all, but most of them are good. The necro devs number 1 priority should be the incredibly weak weapon skills, heals, and utilities on some of the necro weapons. Scepter 3 doesn’t make sense, focus is slow, dagger 2/3 are slow with long cds, axe 1 and 2 are just bad, life blast still isn’t a projectile finisher, and dark path can be outran. Well of darkness, CPC, Flesh wurm, spectral walk, minions, well of power, signet of undeath, spectral grasp, and blood is power are all either buggy, redundant, or outclassed by what other classes can bring.
(edited by zapv.8051)
I like the idea but some of these are a bit too strong, namely Enfeeble and Axe one. Definitely support the general idea though. Would make Beyond the Veil way better and fix all the issues it has.
The idea is most important. After thinking about it for a while, I don’t think they would be too strong.
Could be a nice change for PvE, but I don’t believe PvP players will see much benefit from 7 second pulses as it is usually better in PvP to not stay in DS too long (after you use your 2, 3, 4, and 5, you’ll have nothing else to do for a loooong time except spam life blasts).
Still, I support this for some more PvE utility.
It’s not about getting an extra effect, it’s more bout dealing with death shroud unstable length. Right now we can stay in death shroud as long as we want, making these skills have a very variable cooldown making them nearly impossible to balance. So you try to alliviate that by adding an effect that pulses over time, meaning if the effictive cooldown becomes longer the trait "effect "becomes stronger. So that when the necro meta shifts from longer DS to shorter DS or vice versa the traits don’t have to be rebalanced again.
Yeah, as I said in the original post it’s about making these traits strong across multiple builds that work differently. I don’t think you should be punished for running these traits in a build that camps in Shroud. Currently, the longer you wait before going back into shroud the worse these traits get. It would be one thing if Shroud started it’s CD when you entered, but currently these traits work directly against the profession mechanic just like siphons do currently (but will cease to after Tuesday).
This is a suggestion to make all the traits that trigger on entering Shroud work like shrouded removal, unholy marytr, and rending shroud to pulse their effects. These traits all currently become less effective the more you use your profession mechanic. They are also hard to balance because the uptime is variable depending on if you stay in shroud for 0 seconds or 20 seconds. This list includes:
Furious Demise:
Currently:
gain 5 seconds of fury when entering Shroud
Changed to:
gain 5 seconds of fury when entering Shroud and every 7 seconds while in Shroud
Spiteful Spirit:
Currently:
Cast the axe skill unholy feast when entering DS.
Changed to:
Cast the axe skill unholy feast when entering DS and every 10 seconds afterward while in Shroud.
Weakening Shroud:
Currently:
Cast the skill Enfeeble when entering DS. Crits cause 5 seconds of weakness (10 sec icd).
Changed to:
Cast the skill Enfeeble when entering DS and every 7 seconds afterward. Crits cause 5 seconds of weakness (10 sec icd).
Beyond the Veil:
Currently:
When exiting Shroud you and your minions gain 3 second of protection.
Changed to:
Every 7 seconds in Shroud, as well as when you leave Shroud you and your minions gain 3 second of protection.
Life from Death:
Currently:
When you exit Shroud heal and partially revive allies.
Changed to:
Every 10 seconds in shroud heal allies. When you exit shroud heal and partially revive allies.
Foot in the Grave:
Currently:
Break stun and gain 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds when you enter Shroud
Changed to:
Break stun and gain 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds when you enter Shroud. Every 7 seconds in Shroud gain 1 stack of stability for 3 seconds.
This would open up a lot of build diversity because you could build to stay in shroud, but not really lose out by taking these traits. I also think it would be easier to balance because you aren’t completely balancing around the DS CD. All of these traits would also have ample counterplay in their downtime.
I think plague will be fine. To make up for the nerf to the base skill, they should add at least a 4 skill, maybe a 5 skill. These could apply unique conditions, or siphon health from foes.
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