Blighter's Boon / Deathly Chill ; A suggestion

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"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.)

[Sigmoid.7082]

> @"Yasai.3549" said:

> Honestly though, I think a good place for Deathly Chill would be to simply be to apply a Stack of Bleeding upon hitting a Chilled enemy, with 0.25 interval.

 

I like this one. You can tweak the ICD, the stacks, and the stack duration for balance.

Also solves the problem that people have of conditions applying conditions ending up in a condition cascade and incentivises you to continue to engage after you have chilled someone.

 

[DeceiverX.8361]

> @"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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"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)