Dadnir.5038

> @"Megametzler.5729" said: > I just can't believe someone is actually defending pure bunker bore-out gameplay, designd to make the fight go into overtime and winning theoretically without having to apply any damage... :astonished: Why not? Should DPS builds/strategies be the only ones that have the right to exist in the game? That said, objectively the nerf does not touch only scourge but all profession/e-spec with access to barrier so I think it's totally fair. I mean, be it scrapper (engi), weaver (ele), warrior, ranger or revenant, all of them are hit by this change the same. The only point that might feel unfair is that the necromancer lack other mean of defense but that's a whole different issue.

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > @"DeceiverX.8361" said: > > > DC is fixable by just adding short-duration chill to RS AA chain. Like half a second each max or like 1/4 + 1/2 + 3/4 on the chain. > > > > This would be way to strong. > > > > If anything ANet need to stop attaching anything to the shroud AA. Do you even realize how hard players would complain in sPvP/WvW thanks to this suggestion? Shortly after HoT release ANet nerfed hard every chill source of the necromancer due to sPvP/WvW complain about chill uptime and there you basically suggest "perma chill" on a condition damage build with a rotation that can be sumed up as: F1 + AA... Can we avoid suggesting something like that? Why bother with the chill and not just add bleed on the AA? (at least the bleed duration could be balanced this way.) > > Reasonable concern (why I said half a second max each, even 1/4s each works fine), and maybe fixed via only on Life Reap or something, as my intention is to not have it be truly permanent chill uptime. Though if memory serves, the chill duration was nerfed on necro before they made the changes to convert chill to bleed because the chill DoT itself was dealing too much damage over too long a time more than it just being chill itself. Correct me if I'm wrong on the dates if you want though. No you're right, but the concern on the first nerf to chill duration was given by the player base arguing that chill was to punishing, not for the damage but the CD increased. > For the record, DChill would need its bleed duration reduced as a consequence of being so easily-accessed. I probably should have specified that as it'd majorly affected balance lol. And in the end you'd sacrifice again out-of-shroud damage for shroud damage, favoring the relatively secure stance and enforcing players into their belief that the necromancer is a "noob profession". > The way I see it is that since Chill and other movement-impending conditions don't impact mobility skills, this doesn't make the reaper any more or less dangerous in melee than it already is on its power build nor make it that much less easier to kite since you can just gap-open -> cleanse+dodge and force shroud out or kite the reaper with superspeed, cripple it, chill it, CC it, etc. Power generally just hard wins when keeping a foe stuck in melee, and even a 100% chill duration build will achieve only mediocre DPS considering it should be investing into bleed duration on sigils/runes/food. Reaper's easy to kite, especially so without RO to reset DCharge while in combat, so DChill then works with power builds to prevent escapes/trade cooldowns while offering low DPS, and enables condi builds by acting as a bleed source directed towards sustained combat that can possibly replace Dhuumfire and let condi reaper get some much-needed damage otherwise, since DF + RO is definitively the best build right now for condi DPS reaper. Basically it just acts as either a melee control trait to keep the reaper more consistently in melee per its original design, or a condi DPS one with some melee control. But you forget the skill CD increase which is more punishing for some professions than other, leading them to complains "harder". > The 11111 damage rotation argument isn't really valid when currently, the RShroud AA is its best DPS in the PvP modes and already provides the best utility on skills 2, 3, and 5 via the CDR per AA. Soul Spiral after ES on such a condi build is actually a better rotation for burst with AA to follow up, which is pretty normal for **most** condi builds, anyways, ranging from d/d and shortbow ranger to P/D thief to longbow and S/S warrior to scepter mesmer to core necromancer. Really, really, nothing game-changing here. Because power is currently at it's best when using AA doesn't mean that ANet should encourage this behavior. > Like you can make a sticky water ele and run permachill if you want as some kind of support variant to hit enemy cooldowns hard, but the fact is Chill is only really a threat while people stick in situations where it gets re-applied, which should rightfully be reaper's melee comfort zone, and we're continuously seeing a growing number of movement skills, alacrity, and chill removal across a multitude of professions. You should know that PvP players are already extremly biased against the necromancer's "resilience" and condition damage in general. Is it really necessary to add fuel to the fire? > The enemy CDR concern is valid, but it's really hard to make DC a viable trait without making the skill be balanced entirely on the RS5->4 combo or otherwise reworking pretty much all of necro's chill access to make this trait play fairly and actually be worth taking. I don't think it's a true statement. DC is a strong trait, strong enough that players were using it over RO for power builds when RO didn't have the ferocity buff. You could argue that there is more than just RO ferocity to reaper favoring power since then and you'd be right, but these 300 extra ferocity is what tilted the balance of power between the 2 traits. You could also make DC allow the reaper to treat all combo fields as Ice field, negating the undesirable effects of other fields on it's dps rotation. (And, honestly, I'd find such change more appaeling than boosting the already overbuffed shroud AA again)

Temporary stats given by trait or boons do not count for things that increase another stat in %age. This mechanic behavior was explained 1-2 year ago justifying a fix to Weaver that could abuse such thing.

> @"draxynnic.3719" said: > Druid brings spirits. Which is why the healers in raid builds are generally not healbrands. Exactly. It's not only that but I'd say that's the spirits are unique enough to be the main reason. (Obviously, being able to keep up protection, regen, vigor, fury and swiftness on 10 players/allies and having great access to CCs all while healing help as well. _Spotter_ might just be the cherry on top of the cake allowing some builds variation.)

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said: > DC is fixable by just adding short-duration chill to RS AA chain. Like half a second each max or like 1/4 + 1/2 + 3/4 on the chain. This would be way to strong. If anything ANet need to stop attaching anything to the shroud AA. Do you even realize how hard players would complain in sPvP/WvW thanks to this suggestion? Shortly after HoT release ANet nerfed hard every chill source of the necromancer due to sPvP/WvW complain about chill uptime and there you basically suggest "perma chill" on a condition damage build with a rotation that can be sumed up as: F1 + AA... Can we avoid suggesting something like that? Why bother with the chill and not just add bleed on the AA? (at least the bleed duration could be balanced this way.)

Issues: - Tablet: QoL - Orbs: QoL - Salvation: blindly buff things with QoL issues. Solutions: - Tablet: Either modify _Ventari's will_ to summon the tablet to you on use or have a trait that make this change of fonctionality. (It shouldn't be difficult to implement, ranger's spirits already do that) - Orbs: There is honnestly no solution here. - Salvation: Change the focus of the "orb line" and the "increased healing line" (The "defense" line is fine).

> @"General Ablon.9760" said: > Soooooooooooooooooo, Rework Unholy Sanctuary to grant a burst of healing rather than go into shroud? If that is the only problem, I am pretty satisfied. If you just rework it the way I said, it COULD actually work pretty well with Unholy Sanctuary. They do not even need a new difficult to code game mechanic. Unfortunately, you'd see that there is a score of player that does not want this rework of _unholy sanctuary_. I know it well, I've been arguing for such a rework for years already. Yet while there are player against, I seldom saw players in favor such rework.

> @"Yasai.3549" said: > I think back when Deathly Chill did damage like Terror did, it was pretty darn good, It was "darn good" in 1v1 PvP and uterly bad if you had another DC reaper with you or in PvE. Furthermore, the reason it "good" was that it used to be easier to keep up chill. > and when Deathly Chill was reworked to apply 3 stacks of bleed, it was pretty good too. It was to strong in PvP/WvW because you could use rune of the reaper and aoe bleed your foes to death in a few seconds with your shouts. It was totally out of control in PvP. > But apparently that was "kinda strong" and it got nerfed? > > **This is just a suggestion which could potentially be broken, but I feel like it will help Reaper out as well as solidify its identity :** > > Relentless Pursuit is changed to a trait which applies Chill on Shroud 1. > Why this change? > 1. Relentless Pursuit is kinda er..... kinda garbage compared to a Soul Reaping trait called Speed of Shadows. > 2. Soul Reaping being ran on both Condi and Power Reaper anyway wouldn't necessarily make it so that players will "miss" this trait. > 3. Applying Chill on Shroud 1 will help solidify Reaper as a dangerous melee character which is hard to get away from, especially since this trait will make the autos apply Chill and make it harder for enemies to run away. > 4. Will help apply Deathly Chill's Bleed more frequently > Indeed that's a broken OP suggestion. Trust be told, if anything, for balance's sake, ANet should remove the traits that proc on using shrd#1. The issue with DC is more that there is a part of the necromancer's community that have pushed for reaper to be "the power spec" and ANet's devs gave them what they wanted because it was better to give a bit of power damage to the necromancer's PvE community than to bear the complains about condi cancer from the PvP community. (At that time player didn't have much complain about power damage, now if someone's hit by a 3k hit he directly goes to the sPvP subforum to cry for a nerf...) Personally, instead of your change, I'd just add to DC: "Shrd#2 no longer blind foes at your destination but chill them instead". This should be enough to put the DC and RO at the same level. As for the last push needed to promote a Condi reaper, the best way would probably be to change _lingering curse_ in such a way that you no longer need to wield a scepter to gain the condition damage increase.

> @"dani.5680" said: > Still not the time to destroy this class to oblivion? Ideally, ANet do not "destroy" any profession. > ATM this class has the best condi dmg/best powerdamage/best sustain via blocks/best healing! Define "best". Player's perception of "best" is often relative to specific conditions, ask yourself in which conditions the guardian is "best" as these roles and why. If you do so, you'll probably understand why other professions aren't "best" in these situations. At the same time it would help other players a lot to understand you since you'd provide context. > Should not 1 class be able to do all these things with so little effort! The game is designed in such a way that you're not supposed to need a specific profession for a specific role. > I think its time to kill it like you did with all the other classes, from rev/necro to engi, to warr and other classes you killed with nerf hammer! Here again, there is a need for context. If you look over a long enough timeframe and at the game in general, be it rev, necro, engi or even warrior, all those professions are in a way better state than they used to be (So, far from being "killed"). > So lets do one more try and kill all guardian builds so other can raise from the ashes!

> @"General Ablon.9760" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > > Bloodlust "shroud": > > > Toggle alternative skills weapon specific or just slightly alter skills. > > > > That's the weak spot of the e-spec, it basically doesn't fit the necromancer. > > I actually chatted with someone over Discord, and we had a nice discussion about it. The Shroud could indeed use some tweaking, he suggested something akin to Mallyx elite skill, but with pulseing bleeds, and damage, and a fair bit of healing. > > As for fitting the Necromancer, I do not know anyone else using Blood Magic. I mean, Desert Shroud is also completely different from core/Reaper. Then again, Scourge IS a bit of a weird elite spec. I didn't explained properly, it doesn't fit the necromancer "mechanicaly" because of core traits. The thing is that you need your shroud to be an emergency defense due to _Unholy sanctuary_, you need a balanced shrd#1 skill that can carry all the shrd#1 traits without being uterly broken, you need a shrd#2 skill that won't be make your skillkit broken even if you add 2 boon conversion on top of it... etc. The core weaponkits just aren't fit to support all those "needs" and designing alternative skill for each weapon is just to much work for an e-spec. That's why I'm saying that it is the weak spot of your e-spec. From a subjective or even a thematical point of view it would be great, but if you look at it objectively the core necromancer isn't mechanicaly fit to support such e-spec mechanism. NB.: Scourge was ANet try to part with the shroud and it was objectively a failed try. Not that the way they did it couldn't have worked but they've overcharged each and every F skills which led us to a never ending balance mess. The design you choose also bring with it the risk of overcharging weapon skills and thus lead ANet to nerf those weapon skills despite them being already "poor" for other e-specs. EDIT: The new version with _Bloodstorm_ is incompatible with _Unholy sanctuary_ again. The idea of a shroud without 2nd health bar is sexy but being sent in such shroud when you're about to be down isn't exactly the best idea ever. I hate this trait, it's always in the way and "force" the main mechanism to be, at least partly, defensive.

Can't we just agree that the issue is the 6th bonus and it need to be changed to something less... omnipotent. I mean, 3 seconds of stealth and superspeed, it's a bit to much. It's was already to much at release of the runes to the point that ranger's traps ended up nerfed, then thief ended up having their trap nerfed for the same reason (to the point that they no longer have traps anymore)... What will happen next? DH having their traps changed into _preparations_? (maybe not a bad move but is it necessary to come down to that when changing this 6th bonus would solve most issue)? From my point of view, just change it to increase power by 100 (200 in PvE) for 10s (not cumulative) whenever you lay a trap and we are good.

> @"Lily.1935" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > I would say that it's a bit more complicated than a lack of maintenance. > > > > The issue is more that the balance focus to much on the core tenets of each profession, leading to imbalance by over-emphasys of those core tenets. Most things are good when in an healthy amount, however when you put the concept of healthy amount behind you, it become imbalanced. > > > > The necromancer is the perfect example of that. Number wise and weaknesses wise it's more or less balanced, however he used to have different options (less in line with it's thematic) that have been discarded in favor of it's thematic option. And this lead to imbalance. > > - Fear: At release the necromancer had 3 sources of fear, Downstate, Staff#5 and _Doom_. Nowaday, it's downstate, staff#5, 1 in the shroud mechanism, _Spectral ring_, lich#3 and stability conversion. Not to mention the increased amount of traits effects supporting fear. Let's be honest, it's no longer an healthy amount. > > - Boon conversion: The necromancer used to have half boon conversion and half boon rip. Now, only a single boon riping effect remain while the number of boon conversion effects have been excessively increased to keep in check the growing amount of boons on other professions. Let's be honest, it's no longer an healthy amount. > > - Life leeching: The necromancer used to have some life leeching ability but it's been increased so much that it even hinder it's ability to deal damage. And yet the mechanism still feel lackluster. Let's be honest, it's no longer an healthy amount and in this case maybe the mechanism should have been looked at. > > - The shroud: The shroud used to be a very pale shadow of what we got right now. It used to be better to flash shroud for damage and stay in shroud for defense. Now you need to stay in shroud for everything. Let's be honest, it's no longer an healthy amount. > > - Area denial: The necromancer used to only rely on well and staff for area denial, now it's everywhere and scourge pushed area denial to the next level. Let's be honest, it's no longer an healthy amount. > > - ... etc. > > > > Keep in mind that the necromancer here is just an example, every profession got the same treatment. Every profession have been bloated with their own thematical tools to an unhealthy amount. > > Hopefully I can respond to all this because I don't agree necromancer was ever health or had a healthy amount of anything. Necromancer from my perspective has been the worst balanced and designed class up until revenant came out. If I'm misunderstanding you please clarify what you mean. I never said that it was ever in an healthy state, just that by adding over and over again more of it's "tool" it has become unhealthy(er). And that I think diversity of mechanisms is healthier than a lack of diversity of mechanism (granted that over the years the necromancer lost some diversity of mechanism even if we can say that it got some "new" one added. > Fear: You're talking 2012-2013 because the vast majority of GW2's life necromancer has had little fear. Way too much dedication to it in traits and even at it's most prevalent, which wasn't today, it was lacking. The knockdown trait in death, the fear of death trait used to cause fear when you downed, spectral wall started as vulnerability but that didn't last. We lost 2 and gained 2 sources of fear. The issue is that the frequency of the new sources of fear is way higher. Which make it a net gain, an increase. > Boon conversation: Necromancer used to corrupt all boons with corrupt boon, used to have a signet trait that would remove boons on activation, had boon corruption on scepter auto. The issue here isn't boon corruption in my opinion. Scourge showed us that they have more options. I would argue all of necromancer's boon removal should be boon corruption and what condition it gets corrupted into could be narrow specific conditions half the time. My reasoning is to have potential trait synergy. Boon removal used to be higher for core necromancer but not that much. The signet trait used to be boon corruption if I remember correctly. Seems much of it was moved to scourge. Boons and boon removal is hotly debated though. SoS have been added more than 2 years after released of the game. > Life Leeching: I'm not sure what you're point is here. Life leeching was always pretty bad on necromancer. Only revenant really made it work for themselves and that seems to be because arena net isn't afraid to give it real power behind it.... not only that it didn't used to function in shroud at all. I'm just saying that the mechanism itself is bad and adding more of it like ANet did over the year never solved the fact that it's bad. Reducing reliance on this mechanism by introducing other mechanisms would benefit the necromancer more than giving life leeching over and over even if it's in different forms like ANet did. > Shroud: Shroud flashing was not good design. It discouraged the player from truly engaging with their mechanic. But after 8 years I still think shroud is a bad mechanic that can only be poorly balanced. If shroud flashing was more you enter for 5-10 seconds and pop out then it would have been better. But it wasn't. It was literally you get out as soon as possible because it was just that bad. Reaper does do the 5-10 second in and out of shroud. And it's more engaging than core necromancer. You should engage with your unique mechanic. That's part of the draw to play the class. The fact that we didn't was not a good thing. I agree that shroud is a bad mechanism, yet I disagree, shroud flashing wasn't a bad design, at least it drew the line between defensive use of the shroud and offensive one. But here that just a difference of point of view between you and me: I dislike the fact that ANet put all the damage onto the shroud, you do not. (thought, that's probably what screw the scourge's dps but well, whatever.) > Area Denial: mmm. I don't have an opinion on this one. I'll have to think about it. There's no denying that necromancer is far far better at area denial than it used to be. Although 10 second recharge sand Savant with crippling pulses I'd say was its peek.. But I don't see this as a bad thing or a good thing. Perhaps you can elaborate on what your issue with it is? Too much? My issue is just that the amount have become excessive. After all, I've repeated it over and over again: "Let's be honest, it's no longer an healthy amount."

> On one side:"PvP is dead"..on another side:"We need more nerfs" Isn't it what we call: "Beating a dead horse"?

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > True... epidemic... that skill was more an exploit than a mechanic, so it was a deserved nerf. > > And we could say the same about the lich minion skill - just to a lesser extent, as it wasn't as braindead as epidemic. I'm not sure that qualifying _epidemic_ as brain dead is correct. At the very least this gameplay required coordination between players in order to exploit the short timeframe in which the adds survived while under the condition pressure. I wouldn't say that exploiting mucle memory to unleash a more or less complex rotation of skills require more brain than that. That said, it's always a matter of point of view. If you just look at the result, sure _epidemic_ was OP. Personally I'd say the main issue of the skill is and have always been that you copy the conditions from a foe and the environment offering foes with high health pool was what make this specific skill design OP. In order to be balanced, _epidemic_ should copy the conditions on the necromancer to the foes around him because, there is limited amount of risk that one can personally take in order to deal damage and choosing to take down your foes with you when you're overloaded with conditions feel very "necromancer".

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > I can't remember one single nerf in this game mode. _Lich form_ and _epidemic_ nerf are probably the only 2 real nerfs to the PvE necromancer. - _Lich form_ used to have _mark of horror_ generating sustainable minions critter making the necromancer an ever growing source of bleed. (Was nerfed because the gameplay started to enter the competitives modes. This has been a short lived gameplay only truly possible in PvE due to the HoT mushrooms in raids) - _Epidemic_ used to be a lot stronger, was nerfed in PoF because player started to use epidemic bounce on a large scale. (It's important to keep in mind that the possibility to use epidemic this way existed since released of the game but when it started to become popular in raids the community asked loudly for nerfs)

> Bloodlust "shroud": > Toggle alternative skills weapon specific or just slightly alter skills. That's the weak spot of the e-spec, it basically doesn't fit the necromancer.

> @"KrHome.1920" said: > Unfortunately this point of view fails in face of reality, so why even trying? It's just a waste of time. I would say that it fail "nowaday", it used to be something appreciated earlier in the game.

> @"m k m.2014" said: > > @"Dadnir.5038" said: > > Dodge, block, invuln, reflect, blind, protection, weakness? It might be harsh to say but the tools to answer such skill are all at hand. A "support" being killed by a "glass canon" is supposed to be the natural outcome. The "glass canon" being supposed to be countered by the "tank". > > Did you understand? > Not requerid skill for kill, > "glass canon"? hahahahaha nice joke > The first thing that you should do when you're killed like that is wonder what you've done wrong not complain how you've been downed. If, you're a minstrel FB, you got at least 3k armor and 16k health. No ranger can down you with a single rapid fire unless he is a glass canon with such stats. If you add protection your effective armor shot up to 4k. In this light, even if the ranger is a glass canon, the most likely scenario is that the fight involved a lot more than "rapid fire". Nobody need skill to down someone that don't defend himself properly.

Dodge, block, invuln, reflect, blind, protection, weakness? It might be harsh to say but the tools to answer such skill are all at hand. A "support" being killed by a "glass canon" is supposed to be the natural outcome. The "glass canon" being supposed to be countered by the "tank".

> @"Obtena.7952" said: > EVEN if they screw themselves out of weapon choices on a class like Warrior. Well, anyhting can be a weapon in a warrior's hands even if prejudices lead people to think that a specific weapon is bound to be a "magic" thing. That said I do agree with your arguments about weapon categories, ANet created to many weapon skins lists over the years to implement a whole new weapon without making this weapon feel "empty".

> @"Shroud.2307" said: > Why are you joining parties that are specifically asking that you don't? > > You're not teaching anyone anything by disrespecting their requests. It's ignorant and borderline griefing. Start your own party and tell people you'll teach them how good Necro can be. I'll bet it'll be real popular. Obviously, it's always a matter of point of view but where does the disrespect start? When someone enter a group that look for a different profession or when a group refuse a profession based on prejudice? From my point of view it's disrespect only to narrowminded people, for broadminded people it's an opportunity to learn that there is more than what the rigid meta let you see. Experienced players can teach and can be taught, this is how you make progress. Refusing to teach or to be taught is how you end up roting.

> @"Nimon.7840" said: > _snip!_ While Morde's statement on the ranger losing against anything was fondamentally wrong (The ranger seldom used to have only losing matchup, it had pretty good builds even while the longbow was a wet nooddle), you're comparison between the reaper and the ranger's longbow isn't a very solid argument either. Bottom line is that trying to raise both ranger's and necromancer's dps in PvE without spliting between gamemodes have created unbalanceable designs that are bound to plague the game for a long time. Number wise both professions are balanced but design wise... It's a mess.

> @"SunTzu.4513" said: > Aside from CM and Raids imo meta does not really matter. And even there you need a premade group to get the most use out of it. Sure it is usefull and has it's place if i play with guildies or my static we mostly run a metacomp if we do cm because it's just so much smoother and faster if evrerybody knows his role and the mechaniks. GW2 is a skill based game. In other MMO's you can compensate the lack of game knowledge and/or player skill by outgearing content with the time if the game progressed on. Unfortunately imo the playerbase is already divded trough a huge skillgap. This comes from the huge difficulty differences of the open world related to instanced content. I run a lot of T1 fractals just for the fun these days. People start to complain even there about playing a non meta build. Happned yesterday on my Spellbreaker to me. Uhhhh we think you play berserker why not berserker so much more DPS hurrdurr... Ended up that the guys goes down to Mai Trin within the first two minutes in a god damned T1 tier for like 4 times. On the fifth try i soloed her from around 80%. Took a while but def/strength/SP is perfekt for those kind of stuff. After i finished her they just left instantly... I think we've all got our share of this kind of players, sometime they even kick you when you're doing all the job for them.

> @"silent killer.5732" said: > Man I've been helping people left and right from t1 to t4 who's struggling in any sort of fractals runs and there's the meta heads who thinks only a certain class can work and certain class can not be nothing but a player who wants to lay and pray to be carried. > My necro can go cdps pdps and hsc all at full capacity and I found myself carrying the party I'm in even though I mostly join parties who asked specifically a certain class not a necro. > I feel like the community needs to be little bit educated about what the necro can offer > They all think the necro is only good for pulling and surviving and aoe with epidemic I'd say that as a whole it's even worse than that. The community need to be educated about more than just what necro have to offer, it's need to be educated about what non meta build can offer (and that's huge). The "meta head" like you call them just worship blindly meta builds.

Is it viable? Yes, as a healer the healing scourge is a nice safety cushion that can carry less experienced groups. Is it optimal/meta? No, the necromancer and the scourge have seen countless changes since 2018 but not enough to make it "meta". If anything scourge is farther from being meta than it used to be in 2018. How's necro: The necromancer's position in PvE gradually improve over the years but, as a profession, it's tools are better used against player than the environment. This has made balancing the profession... humm... "difficult", because it can easily overperform in PvP while underperform in PvE. Since feb 2020 ANet truly splited balance based on gamemodes but they've been heavily focused on PvP balance, just trying to not impact the _statut quo_ in PvE.