ZeftheWicked.3076

> @"Sarrs.4831" said:

> Axe is great, very good for PvP/WvW and it kinda-sorta fits into some PvE rotations I think as a Power Reaper?

>

> Necro's waste-of-space weapon is MH dagger.

If anything i would say staff is dead last. Dagger was always good, even as dps, since not every necro was/is reaper with access to gs if we're talking power builds.

Currently on my support scourge i tend to think about dagger instead of staff for tougher fights - the #2 heal is no joke, life force buidup is good, and fast aa lets vampiric presence do it's job. It's a very good weapon if you need sustain.

In spvp dagger is my staple (since i play core necro) that lets me do real power damage, leech life from downed ppl, land a immob from time to time to corrupt boons or chase down a target, and just go stabby-stab-stab on my point. The sheer speed of it is also crucial vs thieves and other guys that can get outta there fast and gs if just a bit flat out fail against.

> @"ChenChilla.4652" said:

> maybe necro **nerfs** are coming next patch

FTFY.

> @"Warscythes.9307" said:

> No worries about the misunderstanding. Yes I agree the F2 nerf is not needed in PvE, however you do have to realize that every single discussion about how necro is bad in PvE is targeted directly at high end PvE. Necro is probably the strongest class in open world pve and any discussion about how necro doesn't do damage etc is not relevant at all in open world. So if you are trying to balance with open world in mind then I'd actually nerf the crap out of necros which of course would be silly.

>

> Support necro also is not a thing except in very very niche cases, specially places like VG no greens or carrying bad pugs through Sloth. It really is just a poor build in general compared to the general meta. It is ok to have some differences which is why weaver is not the only dps in the game when their dps is off the charts, but the gap between heal necro and heal renegade/druid/auramancer is wide enough that you wouldn't really take it anywhere. Boon corrupt in high end PvE also not a thing because it never is crucial enough unless is dhuum.

>

> I think the biggest reason we are having this disconnect is that you are playing a support necro build in open world pve which is fine. However you believe all the complaints are about PvE in general when in fact it is targeted solely at end game PvE content. The balance/power level of necro is completely different between the two.

Well i agree that atm support necro is still lacking to be up there with other healers. But that's something I'd like to see changed and addressed and not screwed over sideways by unnecessary nerf to scourge F2 which was outta whack due to traited boon corruption and not condi cleanse per se (since while on low cd, it had lf cost to it).

I also am very on board of a-net's initial vision of scourge - the healer of moderate heals, but big shields. Healers should be different and not all of them about just pumping bigger green numbers. In that he reminds me a lot of arcanist from FF XIV - a healer that needs to stay on top of his shields to succeed but in return ofers very good dps compared to classical white mage.

Problem is at the implementation is still limping and tripping over it's own legs. Our biggest heal - transfusion negates party protection cast (vampiric wells) and big condi remove (unholy martyr). Our reliable, simple party condi cleanse just got butchered. Vampiric aura had a buff, but it's not at the level where i feel i can rely on it to have whole team survive while transfusion is down. But...i theorize too much here. First i'll get some training and raid healer scourge experience, then talk.

double post, sorry

> @"Warscythes.9307" said:

> > @"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:

> > > @"Warscythes.9307" said:

> > > I don't understand how guys do not know that golem dps is not real dps. Scourge goes up with additional life force as well as movement due to torment ticks and dps consistency with shades. Golem dps is like saying you are a mage trying to cast spells with no mana, that's your minimal dps. Your dps is perfectly fine as long as you are not trying to compare to weavers. It is also why Reapers used to be bench average dps but it is considered poor because real raid situation is completely different from golem grinding.

> >

> > While i wholly agree with initial statement, the end result is even worst for necro.

> > Torment may deal more on moving targets, but moving targets are bane of shades. There's only so many shade casts you got before shade recharge catches up with you. So you'll either go Sand Savant, losing demonic lore's dps to catch up with moving boss better, or gamble with much harder to land default shade + demonic lore.

> >

> > Even bigger kick in the nuts is the hidden damage of other professions - like renegade's razorclaw's rage, guard's virtue of justice (be it core or firebrand), warrior banner effects, thief's venoms etc.

> > These guys have some nasty extra damage options for their party, meanwhile we got.....new and improved vampiric.

> >

> > Not to mention current necro balance seems to follow "let's make all necro specs equally kitten and call it a day"

> >

> > **Core** - worst dps of all core professions, it's not even on the kitten charts. Plus 2012 deathshroud...

> > **Reaper** - let's gut his condi, add dps that still isn't up to par and best of all butcher it's shroud with insanely high life force degen. Enjoy your 5 seconds of reaper shroud!

> > **Scourge** - let's butcher his cleanses via shades, cause who heard of necro having reliable, non random party condi cleanses? But at the very least, unlike before barriers are a real and meaningful support mechanic...

>

> You count as a shade yourself. So all you do in raid is run at the boss in melee range and spam shade to proc your trait; boss movement in general is very good for necro percisely because of that reason. Many classes will lose dps such as weaver or dh due to depending on ground duration aoe while you do not have this problem at all. All you worry about is when to place plaguelands every so often. Group support? You have barrier; it is literally part of your rotation to use your heal on cd and provide barrier and it is incredibly good when you do need it.

>

> Please at least try to play necro in raids first before posting things like this. Just reading golem dps and patch notes is not the same as playing in raids. The nerf of condi removal for example? That's actually likely a very very tiny dps increase for scourge because now you have more chance of transferring condis over instead of cleansing them. 99% of the time you never actually use f2 as condi cleanse more than 1 condi when you should be using it as damage instead assuming you have enough life force to sustain desert shroud.

My apologies, my mistake. I haven't raided in a while indeed and in PvE I play support healer/condi scourge, so by default i stay in backline to pull downed ppl away from the mob and not into it. That was my obvious bad, forgot necro is the 4th shade for purposes of bossing.

Condies pulled and transferred may a be slight damage upgrade indeed, but as support scourge i'm disgusted. The Nefarious Favor nerf should not have gotten into PvE where scourge's healer's role was finally becoming somewhat viable with strong, non decaying barriers, and no one was getting screwed over by a quick, reliable condi cleanse.

More over, even in PvE they overdid with the nerfing. Making shades have a delay, much like engis bombs from bomb kit is a good, and smart solution. There was no need to go gang-ho with multile other nerfs, like cooldown nerf, condi cleansed nerf (especially that one) and boon corrupted nerf with path of corruption.

This monster boon corruption needed some taming in competitive, but they freaking overkilled it from every angle...

> @"Warscythes.9307" said:

> I don't understand how guys do not know that golem dps is not real dps. Scourge goes up with additional life force as well as movement due to torment ticks and dps consistency with shades. Golem dps is like saying you are a mage trying to cast spells with no mana, that's your minimal dps. Your dps is perfectly fine as long as you are not trying to compare to weavers. It is also why Reapers used to be bench average dps but it is considered poor because real raid situation is completely different from golem grinding.

While i wholly agree with initial statement, the end result is even worst for necro.

Torment may deal more on moving targets, but moving targets are bane of shades. There's only so many shade casts you got before shade recharge catches up with you. So you'll either go Sand Savant, losing demonic lore's dps to catch up with moving boss better, or gamble with much harder to land default shade + demonic lore.

Even bigger kick in the nuts is the hidden damage of other professions - like renegade's razorclaw's rage, guard's virtue of justice (be it core or firebrand), warrior banner effects, thief's venoms etc.

These guys have some nasty extra damage options for their party, meanwhile we got.....new and improved vampiric.

Not to mention current necro balance seems to follow "let's make all necro specs equally shitty and call it a day"

**Core** - worst dps of all core professions, it's not even on the fucking charts. Plus 2012 deathshroud...

**Reaper** - let's gut his condi, add dps that still isn't up to par and best of all butcher it's shroud with insanely high life force degen. Enjoy your 5 seconds of reaper shroud!

**Scourge** - let's butcher his cleanses via shades, cause who heard of necro having reliable, non random party condi cleanses? But at the very least, unlike before barriers are a real and meaningful support mechanic...

> @"Brujeria.7536" said:

> The intention is good, but the practical use in game is not. First of all the only spec that can take advantage of this is power necro. The healing is to minimal to make much of a difference on scourge support builds.

>

> Power necro has way too low dps. Core necro does not hit often enough to make good use of that bonus in shroud, you waste the icd. Power reaper is better, yet a big problem of this is that most tools (wells, axe 2, GS3 etc) hit very often and you want to cast all of them together BEFORE entering shroud to increase the damage, which gets crippled by the ICD.

I concur. I happen to be running around in PvE on full apothecary scourge necro (everything asc/legendary save exotic staff). The heal part is 83 without shroud, 165 in it, and that's with 1.5k healing power on me..

> @"Zyllias.9538" said:

> I edited my post, i really like Jalis/Shiro style, is like chinese style, revenant are somehow oriental style in heavy armor? no? With my katanas and my axe.

>

> Edit: they did well to add quickness on phase traversal.

What katanas? The only thing katana like in this game i'm aware of is Bellinda's sword and that thing is a two hander...did i miss something there?

Very random and unreliable condi cleansing for teammates pain point

No resistance despite being the profession that can inflict condies on self

Poor anti-burst options a.k.a. "Target necro first!"

Forward into the past with 2012 core necro death shroud

Reaper gutted with insane lf degen in exchange for still subpar power damage

Scourge a veritable mess balance wise. Yeah i know how to fix it, but hey, do they pay or even politely ask me about it? No? Their problem.

Scepter slower then a snail.....on marijuana

> @"Alveen.7239" said:

> Just change it back or fix it to be game-wide, don’t screw revs over for no reason

Yeah, don't make them feel like Necros!

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> Valid points when it comes to those other condition pulls. I always thought it was honestly kind of odd that plague signet pulled conditions in the first place in no way shape or form is that benefit to the necromancer passively. Which completely ruins the benefit of the signet. I would think that it would have provided condition resistance or something at least if its going to do that but you know its what eve.

> Most of the wells are far too outdated and need quality of life updates.

> Unholy ehhh yeah too much risk for the reward in a serious matter to be honest depending on what you pull you could pretty much kill yourself.

>

> I guess i can see the hurt when it comes to scourge aoe condi cleanse and the addition of a .5 cast time. I still have to say i feel it more so for pvp'ers than pve.

>

> But the rest is meh to me but then again i am a bit bias i thought scourge was a bad idea from near release from the moment the trailer mentioned giving up shroud. and in the same note mentioned them being supporter.

> The devs then release a busted version of scourge which was over performing due to a bug for several weeks which left a bad taste in the communities mouth of anyone not playing scourge.

> Even after this patch i promise you you will still have people feeling the lash from scourges initial release and people still calming that its a problem and that its too strong. This is when you know you let a bug linger too long that the community has a super strict hate for the profession.

A-net has a real problem when it comes to necro. They don't know or understand their creation.

Core necro: good fun, until you go into 2012 mode with shroud or heavens forbid need some real stability vs cc spam...

Reaper: good times! Unless you like fighting in the shroud that actually does something, which after life force degen change is no longer a problem...

Scourge: vomits football stadium sized aoes and is either an unremovable monster on point, or long range sniper's easiest kill ever. ..not to mention he kills the point of previous two.

> @"HardRider.2980" said:

> Trouble is Axe is a MID RANGE weapon which doesn't have projectiles... So it can't do Close range damage or long range damage

That's one of the biggest pros of axe! When a guard or mesmer, or hell even an enemy scourge pops his projectile hate spell and others can only howl if it's impossible to get near....you just whip out trusty old axe and shred them to pieces!

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > @"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:

> > It is, becuase of path of corruption nerf.

> > It screws over reaper (as if the black-hole levels of life force drain per second didn't do enough to them already).

>

> This only applies when scourge is equipped it does not or should not effect core or reaper according to the notes. ;) I dont consider it a direct nerf to the core profession.

> Imo it just means you can use something else now its not like scourge didnt have a ton of other boon converting options :U

> > Also it's unjust and undeserved kick in the nuts to PvE scourges. Low cooldown aoe condi to boon conversion was a strong point of scourge's support kit!

> What kind of conditions were getting hit with that made loosing one convert that much of a big deal in PVE? :anguished:

>

>

The "one convert" was **the one** because of initially very low cd. Our current party condi cleanse options are still very sketchy and unreliable compared to most.

Plague signet - it's a passive and I don't know if it'll pull 2 condies of many ppl at once or just one person while other teammates are still poisoned, bleeding etc

Well of Power - they gotta stand in it and wait - two things that rarely happen during a massive PvE fight

Unholy Martyr - like plague sig - not sure it pulls 5 condies off 5 ppl, or just 5 condies, being totally random who gets what pulled off if any at all.

Necro may be a monster when it comes to getting condies off himself, or using them in other nefarious ways for own gain. But when it comes to party utility we are still in the twilight zone where reliable, predictable and fail-proof cleanses are still few and far between, unlike many others professions with easy, reliable and no brainer cleanses.

It is, becuase of path of corruption nerf.

It screws over reaper (as if the black-hole levels of life force drain per second didn't do enough to them already).

Also it's unjust and undeserved kick in the nuts to PvE scourges. Low cooldown aoe condi to boon conversion was a strong point of scourge's support kit!

Now they might as well delete the skill all together.

> @"Alehin.3746" said:

> Wish i could see OP's reaction after the balance patch. :(

I don't know about his face, but pretty sure we're gonna hear sound of toilet lid getting closed.

**facepalm**.....again.

Someone **Please** get the necro dev here. We need a looong serious talk about what the real issues with our profession are...

Meanwhile warrior, one of the top dogs for any game mode is getting party play boost, yeah, he was a dead profession without it...

**Stay away from condi when leveling core necro!**.

Necro is **terrible** when it comes to applying conditions. They last long, yes, but he takes ages to apply a decent amount! While core Tyria mobs aren't that durable or hard, and a good power build will clean house by the time you even get started applying your condies!

Not to mention you need condi duration for real condi damage, and that does not happen on core tyrian gear. Just go power, grab a well of suffering, ensure you got good power, ferocity and precision (or replacement for it) and mow down your way to 80!

Now, after you're 80 and unlock elite specs, access to Heart of Thorns maps and what not - then you can do an efficient, strong condi build. Feel free to experiment with condi builds before that but keep in mind, that until you're 80 and got access to HoT maps, power is the fast and effective way to clear stuff.

Don't ask me, from where i stand it's a great weapon, that has it's own identity, numerous uses and respectable damage.

Few want to read walls of text, so i'll keep it brief.

Corrupter's fervor now also stacking a debuff that lets vulnerability go over the cap.

**Corrupter's Fervor** - now also stacks a debuff on enemy you condition. Each stack raises vulnerability cap by 1. Max 10 stacks, 8s duration per stack.

What it means that 25% extra damage can be changed to 35% extra damage, which means raid-wide 8% dps boost (be it power or condi).

Since it's in Death Magic, Necro himself won't get OP damage, but he will bring viable damage option to his squad.

And since we're in Death Magic anyway:

**Deadly Strength** - no more of that 7/14% conversion based on non-shroud/shroud. Just plain honest 14% toughness to power always, like everyone else.

Last time i checked power necro is still underperforming, so why not cut him some slack?

Actually upon closer inspection - **whole** bloodmagic grandmaster tier is a slap to a healer's face.

Transfusion - you take this or no real party healing for you.

Unholy Martyr - well yeah, strong condi pull and way to make lifeforce which we need

Vampiric Rituals - the best way for us to give party protection and being non-spike healers we really need that boon for allies!

Guess what? You can have only one of these....

If it's self sustain we're talking about - choices are valid, diverse and fun. But if you wanna be the party healer, you need the heal, you need the protection and you need the condi pull. Well it is what it is atm...

bring back normal shroud degen...

I just played a spvp game using Knight's amulet (so freaking 1200 toughness extra!), and still i had my shroud melt so fast i couldn't even land a decent #5 -> #4 combo...

and that's in a 1v1 duel vs a rather non threatening guard...

Meanwhile my core necro build allows me to sit in shroud a hefty amout of time and unlike reaper feels actually survivable under pressure....

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> And making the corrupt any stronger wont help any gamemode. Instead nerf it. Make it more rewarding to manage your skills and not faceroll. Esp with scourge.

Only if other professions' boon span takes a nerfbat as well. Else it's not rewarding, just underperforming.

I don't see a why we should scrape necro's reviving potential. It's very useful in open world PvE (especially HoT maps) and competitive modes. My spvp necro may not be the best out there, but i sure get a lot of ppl up just with ritual of life trait alone.

Also barriers, now that the decay is gone (and good riddance) are a thing. Many ppl are just stupid and say no to support scourge "cuz it's not in the meta", not realizing that they're not Quantify and what works for pros may not work for them. Having a support scourge that can make 11k HP, 0 toughness squishy dps have 17k-18k hp at a critical moment is a raid saving feature. And if that doesn't work there's still necro's unmatched ressing potential.

They way i see it a-net made necro the "regen type" healer, that has constant, non-spiking healing. Damage spikes are to be handled by barriers.

The issue i see here is that while the idea is solid, the implementation is still imperfect. We don't get 100% uptime on our regen heal (scourge transfusion), and also as healer we should have strong condi-cleanse features as well. But lo and behold, Transfusion and Unholy Martyr are mutually exclusive. A choice that a healer should not be forced to make...

This is a forum, so usually you'll get a lor of voices of disagreement rather then agreement.

From general overview of things you're too focused on power gains and "tick" boosts, leaving active and unique defensive aspects of necro behind. And i don't like that.

Prime example being corrupter's fervor - imho curret fervor is a great trait and a strong highlight of otherwise lackluster death magic line. It's also very unique (20% condi damage reduction + 300 tougness as long as you can keep 10 stacks up). I don't want to see it turned into another generic + power boost, given it's unique functionality and potential (as far a necro is concerned).

Don't heal them, ress them. Let the underperforming ones die, then experience your grace and mercy as you resurrect their sorry rears and give them another shot at life as your ever grateful and loyal minions! Necro4Life!