6 Feb balance update

[dzeRnumbrd.6129]

> @"obastable.5231" said:

> From a WvW perspective:

 

> > * Scourge: Added a 0.5-second warning to enemy players on each shade and on the player when activating a shade skill.

 

> Necessary, nearly impossible to see shades in large fights or respond to their locations.

 

The cast time is too long, it should 0.25 not 0.5 -- or they should have increase to 1200 range to offset the poor cast time.

Tells and +cast time are ok but they went too high on the cast time nerf.

 

WvW verdict: Over nerfed

 

> > * Feed from Corruption: This trait now grants 3 seconds of alacrity when corrupting alacrity from a foe.

 

> Nice bonus little buff.

 

No it's not because no one uses that trait, everyone that knew what they were doing in WvW was using Sand Savant and they still will be.

 

WvW verdict: Useless buff

 

> > * Vampiric Presence: The power contribution from the necromancer to the damage portion of this trait has been increased by about 1,200%. The healing-power contribution from the necromancer has been increased by about 560%. The functionality of this trait has been modified and currently increases its effectiveness by 100% when in shroud. This effect now has a 0.5-second cooldown.

 

> Interesting buff and nerf at the same time - previously did not have an ICD, remains to be seen if the buff is real enough to make a marked difference over the previous iteration. Blood spec is really useful in WvW right now and getting some buffs to the line is a nice perk.

 

Right now if you aren't using Dhuumfire your DPS is bad and if you aren't using Parasitic Contagion then your sustain is bad. So there is no room to take the Blood Magic trait line. If it didn't have an ICD and offered better healing then you could possibly give up Parasitic Contagion. You then lose some of your boon corruption.

 

Blood Magic isn't worth it.

 

WvW verdict: Useless buff

 

> > * Sand Swell: Increased the speed of the portal's formation once the skill has been cast, and altered the effect so it doesn't get culled when in high-density situations.

 

> Nice, it was super slow and got culled out in large group fights. Made it hard for either your team or enemy teams to see.

 

WvW verdict: Meh

 

> > * Nefarious Favor: Reduced the number of conditions converted to boons from 2 to 1 in all game modes. Increased the cooldown of this skill from 8 seconds to 10 seconds in WvW and PvP.

 

> Not sure if it was necessary to nerf in PvE, but absolutely necessary in WvW.

 

Ugh WTF dude - it was nowhere near 'absolutely necessary' in WvW?

How is condition CLEARING in need of a nerf?

Everyone in PvP and WvW hates conditions that's what they keep complaining about.

 

Now Arenanet has addressed these it by nerfing condition removal! How does that make any sense whatsoever?

 

Boon corruption was the one that needed a nerf (they did that).

 

Arenanet are trying to think about removing our sustain as individual players in sPvP but aren't considering the fact that scourges are helping WvW groups sustain in the condi meta.

 

Guess who is clearing half the group's conditions? It isn't water fields people, it's Nefarious Favour.

 

Arenanet just made the condi meta worse.

 

WvW verdict: Dumb nerf.

 

> > * Sand Cascade: Increased the cooldown of this skill from 8 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased the barrier granted by this skill by 15%.

 

> Nice nerf/buff.

 

Giving us 15% more of something that's terrible isn't much of a buff.

 

WvW verdict: Meh - won't even be noticeable.

 

> > * Punishment Skills: The torment durations of this skill category have been reduced from 10 seconds to 8 seconds. The cripple duration has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds.

 

> A minor nerf along with all the other condi nerfs, I'm really looking forward to see how condis continue to be balanced out in WvW. However, don't think this is necessary in PvE.

 

WvW verdict: Meh again - durations don't matter in WvW - that's why most good scourges are running burst damage builds (like Celestial or stronger) instead of Trailblazer.

 

> > * Path of Corruption: Reduced the number of boons converted to conditions from 2 to 1 when coupled with the scourge specialization.

 

> 100% necessary for WvW - although again I doubt PvE Necros need a nerf at all.

 

PvE Necros don't need boon corruption.

 

WvW verdict: The only well measured nerf on this list.

 

 

[obastable.5231]

Nah. It's fine. The point of the changes were to open more viability to Necros - and it did. Every Necro in WvW shouldn't be running the same three trait lines with the same traits in every line. In fact, no class should be, and I hope they do more to diversify other classes as well as they are with Necromancers.

 

The blood trait line is incredibly powerful, it can turn the tides of any fight for a group on coms. There's really no reason or excuse to not have a few of your teams Necros running it, even without gearing for it, other than the standard "I want to be top of the dps meter waaaahhh!" - in which case tell them to re-roll because Necro ain't that class.

 

Firebrands are **cleansing** most of the groups condis, the Necro *conversion* every 8 seconds is not game breaking, especially when those converted boons are continuously being corrupted at the exact same rate. There is a difference between converting and cleansing. If you run Abrasive Grit you're contributing to the groups condition removal in a productive manner, with those **terrible** barriers (by the way, being able to completely mitigate 20k damage to your whole party every few seconds is not so terrible). Barriers coupled with that not "worth it" Blood line allows you 6k healing per second with 100% uptime (optimally geared) or something more conservative like 700 healing per second with 75% uptime and still be maybe top 10 on your groups dps meter, if that's intensely more important to you than having your group just not die in the first place.

 

Condition duration doesn't matter in large scale fights, but it still absolutely matters in the smaller ones. Maybe eventually Anet will create a system that scales intensity based on number of targets within a certain range, but regardless of the long term solution they still have to address all aspects of WvW in the here and now, not just zerg vs. zerg.

 

 

 

 

[Axl.8924]

Jt js> @"obastable.5231" said:

> Nah. It's fine. The point of the changes were to open more viability to Necros - and it did. Every Necro in WvW shouldn't be running the same three trait lines with the same traits in every line. In fact, no class should be, and I hope they do more to diversify other classes as well as they are with Necromancers.

> It is if you don't have a spot for raids and or are trying to survive in spvp.With shroud we were already easy to kill because we were slow and couldn't catch anyone,

 

 

now scourges have no shrouds and their cleanse got nerfed and a cd increase and their damage is still nerfed.

 

 

[obastable.5231]

> @"Axl.8924" said:

> Jt js> @"obastable.5231" said:

> > Nah. It's fine. The point of the changes were to open more viability to Necros - and it did. Every Necro in WvW shouldn't be running the same three trait lines with the same traits in every line. In fact, no class should be, and I hope they do more to diversify other classes as well as they are with Necromancers.

> > It is if you don't have a spot for raids and or are trying to survive in spvp.With shroud we were already easy to kill because we were slow and couldn't catch anyone,

>

>

> now scourges have no shrouds and their cleanse got nerfed and a cd increase and their damage is still nerfed.

>

>

 

 

My posts are specifically about WvW, and I 100% believe the skill balancing needs to be split between WvW, PvP, and PvE. My comments supporting the changes *only* support them in terms of their contribution to balance in WvW.