ZDragon.3046

> @"Josiah.2967" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"OutOfOrder.3719" said:

> > > It sounds like this change to the Scourge Shade mechanic will nerf PvP and PvE builds hard, and do nothing to address WvW large scale battles. what the kitten ??

> >

> > It wont really be a nerf in pve at all it will just require the player to pay slightly more attention to deal damage specifically for end game content.

> > In pvp it is a nerf because scourge now is an easier target if it summon a shade.

> > in wvw well... better get your anti tox runes.

> >

> > LOL

> >

> > But that said i mean if they make scourge subpar in every mode what is it suppose to do.

>

> Think about how this affects dpsing moving targets....

Scourge was not suppose to be a dps that might be part of the problem.

That said if you want to dps a moving target then dont summon a shade and move next to said target then use shade skills like every other form of necro... but you dont have a true shroud or hard defensive tools....

hmmmm problem seems to go back to core necro woops...

> @"Axl.8924" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > > > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > > > > @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > > > > They could also change shroud in core necro to be minion based skills which is where you get your summons. You still get the shroud effect but as you said it vomits minions, or hell just make it that they passively are summoned whenever you have death-magic equipped and otherwise they are unable to be around you.

> > > >

> > > > The issue I have with that is that you only propose to change core shroud. A core traitline impact every single e-specs, not just core. So to justify all those core minion traits they would have to have all 3 current necromancer (core, reaper and scourge) and all futur e-specs "vomit" minions via their special mechanism.

> > > >

> > > > Personnally, I'm not that greedy, I'd rather have them create a single e-spec with a special mechanism focused on creating minion (I'm not even asking for weapon skills or utility skills generating minions, just the special mechanism. I don't even care if this e-spec end up competitive in any way, I just want the necromancer to be cleansed of those traits that support passive minion gameplay and drag down DM.) and the current "minions traits" packed on this e-spec to leave some room for true defensive traits on death magic.

> > >

> > > While true scourage wouldn't take death magic, Reaper might and paired with "Rise!" It could be good. I don't feel like its a big deal its only something that takes place if you have the trait-line active which even if it does get changed not everyone will use it. Don't like it, don't use it is the name of this game and if you don't like a change you switch classes. A-net doesn't care, they are like digital honey badgers....

> >

> > The only way reaper will take death magic is if death magic basically adds greatly to sustain in exchange for the loss of damage.

> >

> > Right now reaper sustains by having kinda threatening ish damage in shroud. A slow reaper with low damage is not a threat right now in the meta. You just run right over it or ignore it.

> >

> > The some ideal things death magic needs in exchange for the damage the user looses by taking it

> > Good condi clear, conversion, or xfer for damaging condies only

> > Grandmaster healing in shroud needs to be addressed in death magic. Either make the grand master good or make the grand master allow other traits that normally do not heal in shroud work so that they do heal in shroud.

> > Some minion traits need to be moved baseline (the one for more hp and damage on the minions should be baseline)

> >

> > Possibly flop some traits around from other lines that are better fitting in a defensive line (foot in the grave for example) would be a good master or grand master minor for death magic line (for its current level of strength has no chance of competing in its current state as a grand master option in soul reaping)

> >

> > IF anet pulls a 1 step forward and 2 steps back with death magic by cutting base line things and forcing them into this line then its going to make necro even more of a mess. This is something they really should be looking to get feedback on.

>

> If ele can have dmg in sustain why can-t we have some sustain without sacrificing too much dmg? seems only fair I know eles in pve need that sustain to survive because they are very squishy but we need some sustain to be able to continue to do dmg and having to sacrifice a lot of dmg to be sustainable isn't a viable choice.

Because ele's sustain comes from different sources and anet firmly and constantly doesn ot believe necromancer should have access to similar features despite it being a light armor magic themed class. One must also consider Ele's much lower base hp pool.

To go into more detail though

Most of ele's sustain comes from

**Evades**

Be it natural evades with vigor uptime or evades like weavers twist of fate ele has access to damage avoidance through evades which is a form of sustain.

**Blocks/reflects**

While they dont have many of these they do have a few noticeable options (Arcane shielding, Magnetic Aura, Wind projectile destruction) to name a few

**BOONS**

Ele is just packed to the brim full of boons what it lacks in hp it makes up for in boons which can questionable be more vauable than having a higher base hp as boons provide extra critical chance, increased damage, increased dodging potential (vigor), as well as many other things.

Lastly Sustain is kind of built into ele by default through water attune, No matter what weapon you look at water is rarely damaging element and almost every weapon in water attune provides some kind of healing skill or spell. In some cases multiple healing skills or spells which also have evades combined into them.

**Necro**

Necromancer is a bit different. Necros damage is there but it is slightly below par on the pvp and pve side. Their damage also heavily depends on their shroud which is kind of ok.... but its also suppose to double as a defensive tool that makes up for all those things other light armored professions have for defensive tools and it just fails to do that at its base.

**pve**

As a necromancer you have a higher chance of survivability in pve simply because you can take harder hits that other professions cant. How ever this is not a valued asset in most cases as most people dont plan end game content with the idea of (the necro will still be standing and can save the day) most people who make a wide spread mistake will just say to gg and start over which voids the the sustainability of necromancer being able to take a harder hit. Should your party or squad continue after a critical mistake (for example you lose one of your dps'ers) This will also be the only time necro really appears to out perform other classes is if well they die early on or go down constantly where as you might not as a necromancer because you can take a punch or two.

**pvp**

In pvp necromancers sustain depends on its offensive pressure because they have very no or lesser kit tools that dont stand up to boon sustain, blocks, and evades. They dont have good resistance to cc lock down, dont have the quickest burst damage, are not very mobile and dont have tools that provide true damage avoidance such as evades, invulns, and reflects. They do have projectile destruction via CPC but thats a lesser tool and its not super useful in pvp where you have to give up things like spectral walk / armor, or other skills that have far more critical value for the lesser sustain they even provide (other break stuns or condi clear etc.)

**General**

To be frank no matter what they do to death magic even if they do nothing but buff it and leave necromancers base kit alone the way the other trait lines fall its going to be a pretty rough damage loss if you opt to take death magic. If anet still encourages the idea of necromancers having no hard defenses then people wont use it because having a bit more toughness in the current burst meta wont matter. If you still get limited dodges where people can just chain cc you to death it wont matter.

To be honest with you either way its probably a bust for any form of necro to use death magic because they currently depend more on offensive pressure for sustain than defensive tools. IF you lower your damage and people are quick to notice they will still run circles around and right over you and you will just feel like you are less effective.

It will be interesting to see if they actually rework it or just tap like 2-3 traits with a small QoL that makes literally no difference between the previous version and call it "Fixed" for another 5 years. Death magic needs a near miracle wishlist of a rework to be considered viable and if it does become viable people will be quick to voice their opinions on it to make it unviable.

Death magic is a small problem in the entire necromancer kit its a good spot to start by giving necro a true defensive line that actually works and feels like its doing something when you equip it. How ever core necro still has so many more issues that need to be fixed which will then extend to the elite specs bringing them up to par with other professions as well. This is not easy to balance for all game modes though.

> @"Morde.3158" said:

> the old death magic was better rending shroud was so fun the long somone commits to you the more vulnerability applied to them and deadly strength was free. I'm a Necro main I just hope they dont ruin stuff that does not need to be ruined like they always do. Man they are about to remove 50% damage reduction from shroud this is about to hurt wvw power builds please don't do this lol

Im almost positive if they pigeon toe that into death magic and remove it from both base and reaper shroud they would be un usable in pvp and wvw. it will also hurt pve necros as well. if they did that they would literally have to make it so that life force basically did not drain naturally at all while in shroud and that shroud up time would now be determined by the amount of incoming damage you took.

The things we should hope for.

Less (on death) traits.

Less traits that only trigger on death or effect things that happen on death as when something dies the fighting is usually over and the benefit is not really a benefit the only exception area to this is maybe wvw but still. Most of the traits at the moment that deal with something happening on death need to be changed into something that happens while in combat. On death traits have mostly 0 purpose through the corse of a fight.

More true sustain

Fix the healing grandmaster to actually heal a respectable amount at default and a greater amount when healing power is invested.

Have condi removal traits target damaging condis only. We already have speed of shadows as a trait for removing movement impairments no need to double down.

Increase life force gain via skills or naturally over time rather than (on death)

Stability, Stability, STABILITY!

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Etterwyn.5263" said:

> > > > @"Helly.2597" said:

> > > > All this misguided fear about nerfs. Anet certainly isn't balancing around small scale roaming in WvW. And builds are like encryption, the only way you know it's good is by telling as many people as possible and seeing if anyone can break it/improve it.

> > > >

> > > > Example would be after anet buffed deathly chill. Clearly 3 bleeds per chill application was too strong and needed a Nerf. And yet it wasn't nerfed until after PoF launched. Those builds weren't secret and yet they survived a long time.

> > > >

> > > > I've roamed necro a long time. And I don't think I've ever seen a nerf that was directed related to any necro roaming build. Closest would be the signet changes destroying boon corrupt hybrid, but those changes were supposedly to make signets more useful in pve (laughable).

> > > >

> > > > And as was mentioned above, any build (that isn't a hard support) can pull off 1v3 in WvW. In fact necro is exceptional at this due to it's high amounts of aoe and area denial. So I wouldn't suddenly think this build deserves a Nerf.

> > >

> > > Epidemic got nerfed **twice** because of Deathly Chill (in combination with the new Expertise stat), since the 50,000 bleed stacks could suddenly be bounced exponentially depending on the number of Necros. They should have just addressed the stupid trait itself from the beginning.

> >

> > hmmm this sounds incorrect

> >

> > Deathly chill got nerfed in the patch that culled condi builds from being instant melting making power builds almost irrelevant.

> > Not to mention deathly chill was never strong in the first place, it required several exploits to be considered viable in the community and hinged on one exploit after another once all the exploits got fixed the true effectiveness of the trait became obvious. Around the same time anet buffed power reaper a good bit shortly after.

> >

> > Epidemic got fixed the first time because of how it worked in wvw i dont remember the reason but something about how the instant condition spread was

> > 1: not easily countable

> > 2: causing some back end stress on the servers

>

> They changed it because no counterplay available. There was no projectile if I remember correctly.

I thought so.. if thats the case this is not a nerf. I agree that if something has very very VERY limited counter-play it should be changed sorry. i dont consider this a true nerf. When other professions have things that have super limited counter-play its only fair they get the same treatment.

> @"OutOfOrder.3719" said:

> It sounds like this change to the Scourge Shade mechanic will nerf PvP and PvE builds hard, and do nothing to address WvW large scale battles. what the kitten ??

It wont really be a nerf in pve at all it will just require the player to pay slightly more attention to deal damage specifically for end game content.

In pvp it is a nerf because scourge now is an easier target if it summon a shade.

in wvw well... better get your anti tox runes.

LOL

But that said i mean if they make scourge subpar in every mode what is it suppose to do.

> @"Flumek.9043" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > @"Flumek.9043" said:

> > > This is ULTRA CRINGE LEVEL of clunky.

> > >

> > > Even for ANet, and even for necro standards.

> > >

> > > I think the best way for PVP is TO NEVER place a shade untill you already win a fight and are clearing downed bodies. Pathetic bad design.

> >

> > it just means if you want to cover the point and yourself you now have to place 2 shades one on the point and one on yourself or simply move yourself to your placed shade. its different it not exactly game breaking but it is forcing you to use more resources or not and just be the shade yourself.

> >

> > Perhaps though this is part of their overall plans with what they have cooked up for death magic.

>

> I understand what it means.

>

> And you use words like "JUST" pretty casually.

How else am i suppose to use it?

> Just drop a nuke.

Sounds like you understand it pretty well i mean considering this is what scourge was released ass originally

> Just nerf it to oblivion. Just make it even stronger in WWW where its main problem, while making it even glassier and clunkier in PVP where its almost unplayable.

Thats going a bit over the top dont you think then again what are they suppose to do not have it be viable in any place?

> And then you still have trust in Anet, in necro, and in DeathMagic getting reworked for 3rd time ?

Depending on what they do i would consider this the first rework

I dont count that small change they did to like 2 traits 2 years ago or something thats not a rework thats an update. A rework would consist of at least 60-80% of the traits in the entire line getting some sort of change, get removed or moved to other lines that make more sense, or receiving Quality of life changes that make them useful in the current game time frame. If you can show me 2 previous attempts where this is happened feel free **just** prove me wrong.

> @"Flumek.9043" said:

> This is ULTRA CRINGE LEVEL of clunky.

>

> Even for ANet, and even for necro standards.

>

> I think the best way for PVP is TO NEVER place a shade untill you already win a fight and are clearing downed bodies. Pathetic bad design.

it just means if you want to cover the point and yourself you now have to place 2 shades one on the point and one on yourself or simply move yourself to your placed shade. its different it not exactly game breaking but it is forcing you to use more resources or not and just be the shade yourself.

Perhaps though this is part of their overall plans with what they have cooked up for death magic.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

>

> The feedback was saying that the issue was the coverage, what did you expect?

>

> If you put yourself into ANet's shoes and read the feedback, the way they modify shades is a brilliant way to answer the feedback they got. If I didn't know that the real issue is the damage done, I would even cheer ANet for the good work. After all they keep the 10 targets support while reducing the coverage and offering clear In fight choices of gameplay to the players. You could even say that they make it so the scourge's choices to lay a shade or not, matter strategically.

>

> Ultimately it won't shut down the complains and will certainly create even more issues but, undeniably, it is a brilliant way to answer the coverage concern that the players voiced.

To be honest i was just speaking out loud im not drastically concerned. It was more of just food for thought of my personal opinions

I think this is a good way to handle coverage when it comes to zone control vs target cap. I cant say im happy with scourge as a whole because scourge turned out to be something other than what i was hoping for originally when they initially wrote it off as a "support" but i think the risk of now not having your own aoe on you and on your shades is good for most game modes in pve it wont matter too much in pvp it makes the risk / reward more outstanding. In wvw the coverage for big zerg fights is going to be even better lol. I think people in wvw will most certainly still complain but at the same time they could have nerfed it heavily and people in wvw would still complain about scourge.

Scourge is the most viable in wvw and necro being close to the top tier levels of viable in any game mode is simply a nuance for anything that is not a necro or at least thats how it comes off when i read alot of things both here and in game.

>

> Now, I agree with you that scourge was sold as a support spec and damage should have never been it's strong point. I also agree with you that barrier stacks incredibly well in WvW and ANet should probably have focused on a different kind of support. I'll also say that there idea to make scourge's boon corruption corrupt boons into a smaller array of condition was a good idea even if boon corruption is not adapted to PvE (or PvE isn't adapted to boon corruption).

The boon corrupting to specific conditions is good i wish there was a bit more touch up across the line on how boon conversions work as well as punishing effects against targets who have no boons so that boon corrupts were still some what viable in pve where boons are kind of rare. Maybe we will get there one day.

>

> ANet could have shut down most of the complains long ago by removing the F1 proc on other F skills and reworking F5 into a defensive skill that don't deal damage. This would have made PvE players complains but it would also have made things easier to balance in all gamemodes (even in PvE).

That is a tricky one I would have argued to get rid of the idea of placing shades all together for just moving aoe's that worked defensively and provided area support around the necro. Traits that made barrier stronger than what it is on other professions. etc.

>

> In PvE, just giving perma vigor to mobs with defiance/breakbar/indomitable would be enough to give some room for boon corruption and thus put all this boon corruption stacked on punishment skills to use. If the damage ain't enough, add 1 or 2 extra stacks of torment when corrupting boons to punishment skills (PvE only) and it would have done the trick.

That could work or the easier way just as i said above give boon corrupt skills a bonus effect that triggers when used against a foe with no boons. This could be something simple like applying bleeds, torment, or increasing the damage done by that skill. This makes the boon corrupt skills viable in pve while keeping their power to boon manage in pvp and wvw. (even-though i hate necro being the main boon counter in this boon dripping meta.)

A good example would be necromancer axe 3 right now its bonus strike only triggers on foes under 25% which is kind of ok in pvp every once in a while the extra strike catches some one off guard. I personally would like it better if it did the extra strike if always if the foe you hit with the initial skill has no boons.

>

> They could have changed F5 so that it reduce damage taken by 15% when you stand in the shade/scourge area instead of dealing damage. With _sand savant_ the scourge would have had 30% damage reduction for a few seconds... How OP would that have been?

Considering Holo smith was a dps spec that launched with a build that allowed massive dps while being able to hold 50 - 95% damage reduction for both strikes and condi damage i would say not very op. 30% damage reduction for few seconds on something like scourge that has no true shroud would have probably been ok if the f5 did not have a damaging components tacked onto it.

Just make them Kit based skills to be honest.

Rework the cds and effectiveness of the skills themselves

The idea of sharing the conjures these days is pretty much lackluster when most ele's use a conjure they dont want other people to pick it up because its part of their rotation with the only exception being the frost bow which can be used for extra cc.

Generally though a pick up put down system like engi kits would make all the conjure weapons much better i would totally use the flame axe lol

> @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > > @"Thornwolf.9721" said:

> > > They could also change shroud in core necro to be minion based skills which is where you get your summons. You still get the shroud effect but as you said it vomits minions, or hell just make it that they passively are summoned whenever you have death-magic equipped and otherwise they are unable to be around you.

> >

> > The issue I have with that is that you only propose to change core shroud. A core traitline impact every single e-specs, not just core. So to justify all those core minion traits they would have to have all 3 current necromancer (core, reaper and scourge) and all futur e-specs "vomit" minions via their special mechanism.

> >

> > Personnally, I'm not that greedy, I'd rather have them create a single e-spec with a special mechanism focused on creating minion (I'm not even asking for weapon skills or utility skills generating minions, just the special mechanism. I don't even care if this e-spec end up competitive in any way, I just want the necromancer to be cleansed of those traits that support passive minion gameplay and drag down DM.) and the current "minions traits" packed on this e-spec to leave some room for true defensive traits on death magic.

>

> While true scourage wouldn't take death magic, Reaper might and paired with "Rise!" It could be good. I don't feel like its a big deal its only something that takes place if you have the trait-line active which even if it does get changed not everyone will use it. Don't like it, don't use it is the name of this game and if you don't like a change you switch classes. A-net doesn't care, they are like digital honey badgers....

The only way reaper will take death magic is if death magic basically adds greatly to sustain in exchange for the loss of damage.

Right now reaper sustains by having kinda threatening ish damage in shroud. A slow reaper with low damage is not a threat right now in the meta. You just run right over it or ignore it.

The some ideal things death magic needs in exchange for the damage the user looses by taking it

Good condi clear, conversion, or xfer for damaging condies only

Grandmaster healing in shroud needs to be addressed in death magic. Either make the grand master good or make the grand master allow other traits that normally do not heal in shroud work so that they do heal in shroud.

Some minion traits need to be moved baseline (the one for more hp and damage on the minions should be baseline)

Possibly flop some traits around from other lines that are better fitting in a defensive line (foot in the grave for example) would be a good master or grand master minor for death magic line (for its current level of strength has no chance of competing in its current state as a grand master option in soul reaping)

IF anet pulls a 1 step forward and 2 steps back with death magic by cutting base line things and forcing them into this line then its going to make necro even more of a mess. This is something they really should be looking to get feedback on.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> Death magic rework? Let's brace ourself for the worst. I can already imagine:

>

> > _We've been thinking about death magic for a long time already and seen that the traitline wasn't up to work for the necromancer's defence. We've decided to make the defensive aspect of the shroud less awkward opening way for specializing in defense._

> > - _Soul comprehension_ is now replaced by _lich's mantle_. _Lich's mantle:_ reduce all damage by 50% while in shroud.

> > - Shroud no longer naturally mitigate damage by 50%, you need to to take Death magic for that.

> > - _Putrid defense_ now reduce damage taken by 1% per different condition on the attacker.

> > - _Armored shroud_ now also grant 90 point of toughness while out of shroud.

>

> Scarry, right? That's the worst I'm bracing myself for at the moment.

i would probably never set foot in pvp as necro ever again lol

Makes core and reaper unviable without deathmagic so its a loss of damage no matter which line you trade for it only go gain basically what we had at base which is already subpar lol

> @"Etterwyn.5263" said:

> > @"Helly.2597" said:

> > All this misguided fear about nerfs. Anet certainly isn't balancing around small scale roaming in WvW. And builds are like encryption, the only way you know it's good is by telling as many people as possible and seeing if anyone can break it/improve it.

> >

> > Example would be after anet buffed deathly chill. Clearly 3 bleeds per chill application was too strong and needed a Nerf. And yet it wasn't nerfed until after PoF launched. Those builds weren't secret and yet they survived a long time.

> >

> > I've roamed necro a long time. And I don't think I've ever seen a nerf that was directed related to any necro roaming build. Closest would be the signet changes destroying boon corrupt hybrid, but those changes were supposedly to make signets more useful in pve (laughable).

> >

> > And as was mentioned above, any build (that isn't a hard support) can pull off 1v3 in WvW. In fact necro is exceptional at this due to it's high amounts of aoe and area denial. So I wouldn't suddenly think this build deserves a Nerf.

>

> Epidemic got nerfed **twice** because of Deathly Chill (in combination with the new Expertise stat), since the 50,000 bleed stacks could suddenly be bounced exponentially depending on the number of Necros. They should have just addressed the stupid trait itself from the beginning.

hmmm this sounds incorrect

Deathly chill got nerfed in the patch that culled condi builds from being instant melting making power builds almost irrelevant.

Not to mention deathly chill was never strong in the first place, it required several exploits to be considered viable in the community and hinged on one exploit after another once all the exploits got fixed the true effectiveness of the trait became obvious. Around the same time anet buffed power reaper a good bit shortly after.

Epidemic got fixed the first time because of how it worked in wvw i dont remember the reason but something about how the instant condition spread was

1: not easily countable

2: causing some back end stress on the servers

Epidemic got nerfed the 2nd time because of how players started to stack and use it. Because necromancer was considered underpowered this was the only exception in which the community of necros saw it viable via epi bouncing. Mean while every other profession main saw this as op and unfair because people dont like it when necromancer gets something that brings them close to being borderline top meta viable. Anet also didnt like this because all it does is pigeon toe players into taking more necros instead of other professions and not everyone likes or plays necro. So anet nerfed epi so that it was still usable for its main goal spreading conditions but not heavily abusable by multi bouncing

Overall the shade skills imo should have only been around the caster from the start of scourge's release.

The grand master traits should have provided different game play function like being able to place a ranged shade etc.

THEN AGAIN

Scourge should have been like a real support with real support tools other than barrier from the start

Damage should have never been high from the start

Support should have been added as promised long ago but it never was.

In wvw scourge will have more ranged offensive power in zergs

in pvp scourge will become weaker and need even more protection than before or be forced to use more resources to cover itself and the area it wants to target.

in pve scourge is just gonna be a bit more clunky but should still be fine.

> @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> Only real change I would make to the dagger auto attack is to reduce the aftercast of the 2nd skill in the chain, letting that final hit happen faster. Also would consider adding a single short stack of Bleeding to let the weapon self-combo fully.

i kinda of agree with this to be honest a bit of bleeding on the autos would go along way and of course the aftercast is a long requested QoL change we have all been waiting for.

One could question increasing the damage on dagger 2 just a bit to take it from being just heavy utility weapon to a power melee weapon with sub utility. Dagger 2 can hit pretty hard under the right conditions but axe still just hits slightly harder. Then again if the aftercast thing was fixed the autos form dagger might out perform axe autos so maybe it wouldnt be needed ;)

> @"Etterwyn.5263" said:

> I'm just trying to find an enemy with 3 boons in PVE. B)

out side of fractals i dont think there is one some of the awakened get like 2.... lol

> @"Anchoku.8142" said:

> The low amount of stab helps justify the AoE condi pressure. Increasing stab on Necro may force the dev's to look at something else to decrease.

Aoe condition pressure on what? Scourge only?

What about core and reaper? Their aoe condi pressure is appropriate for that weakness?

I would like to ask where it is?

Reaper has aoe power pressure (which requires melee range with no hard defenses) More risk for more reward? so thats not valid to your argument of aoe condi pressure. Reapers damage is justified by being limited tom melee only.

Core necromancer. Life blast goes in a line, shroud 3 is single target, shroud 4 has no condi attached to it, shroud 5 is moderately ok but its not anything great.

Wells are outdated and pulse very slowly

Staff is outdated very high cooldowns effectiveness of those skills is pretty low for for the high cds on those skills

Scepter is ok but alone its not that big of a deal on core and or reaper

Ideally the only real argument is with scourge when it comes to aoe condi pressure and it even has a breakstun with stab attached to it!!! Everything else you can throw this argument bluntly out the window though.

Ideally some of his ideas are ok Spectral armor giving a stack of stab only if it breaks a stun is actually a good idea.

Remember that you often want to use armor early in some cases for extra protection as well as building life force when taking strikes not only waiting for a stun to hit you then pop it (we dont have a passive spectral armor anymore) and spectral armor got 0 updates with the patch that pushed out spectral mastery. **WHY THAT WAS I DONT KNOW!?!?** But in any case spectral armor could use an update.

All the wells with the exception of suffering could pulse faster just cut the damage in half and make the strikes hit twice as often.

This makes the corruption well better for burst boon strip

Well of darkness better for damage negation via rapid blind application

Well of power better for burst condi clense (also remove the cast time from this well no point in having it) IF you interrupt the after cast the skill activates without the well actually landing on the ground. Feels bad man.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> Nobody enjoy being on the losing end. Yet, in a competitive gamemode, ultimately there is a need for a winner and a loser. It's not fun to be CC chained but it's a legit tactic to use to get rid of a foe and it's natural for them to be rewarded for their teamplay.

>

> Stability is one of the weaknesses of the necromancer, we've known this for 7 years already. Is this necessary to complain about scisor beating paper?

I dont blame his frustration and your reply to his statement is kind of lame just being honest.

I dont like getting bull charged into shield bash, into headbutt or rampage either all because foe knows one of them is promised to hit cause you cant dodge / break stun them all or get away and this is just from one profession. When multiple professions focus you and do this tactic yeah... its very very very frustrating.

Its fun not getting to participate / play ;)

> @"dceptaconroy.7928" said:

> Utility is half decent just speed up the AA. Then if you feel like knocking our face off speed up focus 4 projectile to match.

??? adding more charges to marks 3,4,5

??? lowering the cds on on marks 3,4,5

spreading marks to other weapons making the trait soul marks usable all around instead of smashing them all on staff???

staff is living 2015 its now 2019???

Even if you like the current kit of staff there is nothing wrong with making it more effective i dont consider it an effective utility weapon for the meta of 2019

Unless maybe you play wvw which in that case its just smashing thoughtless marks on the ground (cause people in zergs are bound to hit them.) for open world and pvp though its hardly good imo. I stopped using staff ages ago. You can practically ignore almost everything it can provide most classes wont care to run through staff marks these days cause the marks are no real threat even more so against classes that already counter necro with heavy condi cleanse or resistance.

Its not like a mesmer staff where it becomes utility defense with good condi damage and kite potential (even more so when combined with mirage) you swap to staff and its just asking to be killed.

My biggest hang up with staff is the effectiveness of the skills vs the cooldowns + the need of soul marks ontop its alot of investment for not alot of reward. It may not be bad but it most certainly could be BETTER.

ITs a core necro weapon that got no love with the addition of elite specs and it shows very bluntly.

> @"Diak Atoli.2085" said:

> > @"Rico.6873" said:

> > > @"LucianDK.8615" said:

> > > wrong forum.

> > > And scourges already have scepter+torch. They dont need another condi weapon.

> > > If anything staff should be a perfect weapon to support minion builds.

> >

> > Mesmers have a stronger condi set up with their weapons than the necromancer

> > Where the necromancer has more power options then condi option build in their weapons

>

> To take your example: Necromancer have absolutely no minion support on their weapon sets, while Mesmers almost always have (at least one?) Phantasm or Clone skill.

>

> My support goes to Minion Staff rework.

The issue here is gw2 does not make minions a staple mechanic of the necormancer. They are a utility only and they are pretty bad. Save minion shuggestions for when anet actually wants to make them decent.

A staple mechanic would be Boon Corruption and Marks

If you want staff to be a good weapon remove some marks from it and spread them to other weapons much like guardians symbols and mesmer clone and phantom skills

Give staff proper auto attach chain giving them a modest but not overly strong 1200 ranged power attack.

Any marks that remain should by default have at least 2 charges with a lowered cooldown nothing over 25s assuming their effectiveness remains as they are now (which is quite low)

Note anyone saying that staff is fine needs a reality check staff skills have not been updated since 2015 with the exception of chillbains which got a nerf with the condi culling meta patch.

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> Boys we can have hope:

>

> > Greetings fellow Tyrians,

> >

> > We've been thinking about implementing the following changes and wanted to share them with you to hear your thoughts and feedback. We’re aiming to bring into line some of the more dominant builds and compositions of the current WvW meta so that new options can be brought to the table, so the bulk of the changes shared here are WvW-centric. This is not the full list of changes that are being considered for the next balance update.

>

> "This is not the full list of changes"

> I really hope, we get a meta shakeup for pve.

>

> It's really annoying:

> Condi bosses: mirage/renegade

> Condi Bosses with adds: firebrand

> Power bosses: thief/Dragonhunter

>

> And that for several patches now. Time to nerf those classes.

>

Im not so sure i agree here

Firebrand and Dragonhunter are strong classes not because their elite specs are over tuned they are strong because their core foundation is very solid and very strong.

Guardian is a very very strong and stable profession all on its own. Its still used in other game modes and so any elite bonus stack ontop of it is strong.

The reason why scourge lacks is because core necromancer lacks, in its utility, its weapon skills, and its traits. Reaper is doing ok for the moment but reaper is literally over tuned and gimped into like 3 very specific traits right now. IF the reaper line itself gets a hard nerf it will be very crappy because core necro is crappy.

Both Reaper and Scourge lines needed or need to be over tuned because the core lines are in shambles the core weapon skills outside of axe maybe are in shambles and the utilities are still super outdated.

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"Anchoku.8142" said:

> > Well of Darkness: Add a 0.5 second bind to each pulse to aid in anti-movement.

> >

>

> That's to strong. Add low amount of physical damage per pulse if there is really a need for something to be added.

>

not at all. (thiefs new smoke ring does this and is very solid but not op) and that one even block projectiles which well of darkness will not do. A player pretty much cannot attack you standing inside this without resistance because you cant just easily cleave through the blind for the short duration the wall is up. This idea of his would actually give necromancer a proper damage avoidance tool when used properly. Via conditions without giving it evades, blocks, invulns which you also wont ever agree should happen for necro no matter who or how some one makes the claim

The current Well of darkness is more of a joke, as its blinds proc so slowly that its rather easy for some one to cleave right through it and ignore it making the utility not worth taking in most cases.

I would argue that as a pure defensive type of well it would be justified and bring it up to date.

Even if they added some kind of strike damage to it its unlikely that its going to be more strike damage or even as much strike damage as well of corruption which already hits kinda meh....

I would rather have a proper damage negation utility than one that can easily be cleaved throught but does a 800 critical damage strike on top of super slow blinds.

I hate to say it but his idea on well of darkness is pretty justified and by far not too strong.

Your idea seems pointless as the skill still would not be worth using in any game mode.

Not even in pve end game where you want more burst you would still run suffering and corruption over darkness. wells for a more bursty setup. Unlikely that you would drop signet of spite for that.

For wvw i dont think these changes will matter too much to be honest that said the heavy barrier nerfs will hurt scourge alot in spvp if they get applied there as well.

**Sand Cascade's** Barrier is already pretty crappy in terms of amount and to cut it by a 1/3rd of what it is already is a massive hit. I would argue that the life force cost and cd of the skill is no longer fitting for the amount of barrier its going to provide

You could say some of the same for **Sand Flare** in terms of his cd.

Scourge was brought into the game ideally as a off support and was suppose to have more support given to it and more power taken away from it why this never happened im not sure.

I don't even main scourge and i think the barrier nerfs are a bit unjust here but thats just me at least for pvp. Even if we look at the fact that **Sand Cascade** can be extended via shades this still does not explain the hit to **Sand Flare** where the scourge needs to be standing next to those it wants to give it too which is much more of a risk. Not once have i ever thought **"oh that darn barrier is just too much."** Any time fighting as scourge.

I get what they are trying to do here for wvw in the instance where you have a high number of scourges together providing barrier and all but still.

The scepter nerfs are understandable though. Granted i still dont think they were crazy to start with but i see why they did it i suppose.

Bad no..

outdated yes

useful to some yes

but still outdated most definitely

I dont agree that staff is perfect or that good anymore and think it should change a bit

**1: Its outdated**

- It could be seen as good or great 3-4 years ago but in the current meta i dont even use a staff its pointless for the builds i play

- cd's are too high effectiveness of those skills is a bit too low from where they really could / should be

- While its not particularly 100% BAD its very far from where it should be. Its a core necomancer weapon and it really shows if you catch my drift.

**2: Marks only exists on this weapon and and no others**

- Unlike other professions who have their unique mechanics spread across multiple weapons

- For example guardians have symbols across different weapons and mesmers have clones and phants across different weapons.

- Yes i know necro has boon corruption spread across different weapons but this aint exactly a favorable thing in all game modes.

**3: Auto attack is pretty bad**

- This slow hand that moves in a line like the new shroud 2 skill is just bad skills like this should not exists in this game in 2019 makes them terribly inconsistent when you need them to be consistent in terms of use.

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > @"Aeolus.3615" said:

> > Imo the issue is how there’s way to much people stack them in hope of no effort wins due how game overloaded with aoe expecially from scourges.

> >

> > Altough scrounges could have some better trade off besides low mobility....

> >

> >

>

> Better tradeoffs?

> -low mobility

> -bad self sustain

> -weak to ranged attacks

> -weak to cc

> -no evade frames

> -no invulns

>

> Isn't that more than enough?

> That's way more than any other class has

Your idea of trade offs is all wrong

Scourges trade off is that it no longer has a personal shroud in exchange for more zone control with its shade skills

Reapers trade off is the loss of ranged pressure attacks for strong bursty melee cleaving attacks for increased life force cost.

Necro has always been

Low in mobility

Unable to use invulns

Limited in evade frames

Been week to CC

Bad in self sustain

regardless of what elite spec you take.

The things you listed are not really trade offs because they exists on all forms of the necromancer. If they always are there then its not a trade off. A trade off is getting somethings for the loss of somethings.

> @"Demon Puppet.6873" said:

> 300 radius 10 target cap is way too strong. It makes Core Necro and Reaper completely obsolete.

Better suggestion... Make core viable first ;) Once thats done then we can say scourge actually makes it obsolete... needs to first be viable

Reaper is kind of viable at the moment but i don't specifically think scourge is better than it. Scourge does counter reaper only because it uses a ton of boon corrupt which can often completely screw a reaper over.