[discussion] Chill of death

[Dadnir.5038]

_Chill of death_ is one of our oldest traits that accompagnied us for already 6 years.

 

In it's long history, this trait was often used in PvE because there wasn't any trait of the same tier that were really interesting enough to be taken instead and in PvP... for the nice burst and the fact that no trait in the same tier was interesting enough to be taken instead of it.

 

For those that don't know, _chill of death_ cast "lesser" spinal shiver when you hit a foe which is under 50% health point and have a 20 second ICD. I say "lesser" because, objectively it's not a "lesser" version of spinal shiver but more a "greater" version of this skill since it's instant and don't have any tell.

 

Now, the necromancer evolved, devs even started to give it more raw power damage and as a side effect, spinal shiver burst of damage is starting grow as well which, like a lot of things on the necromancer, might become an unintended threat of PvP balance.

 

So, what do you fellow necromancer think? Is the potential burst of this trait low enough to not be a threat to balance even if ANet were to bring necromancer's sustain dps up to other profession's sustain dps? Do ANet need to make some change on this trait to make it less impactfull and maybe more controllable or should this trait stay the same, after all it's been working this way since years and never been an issue?

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

Imo damage is not really the biggest problem in pvp that isn’t a total one shot mechanic. Even then, one shot builds are often squishy and easy to take down.

 

The problem is Pressure, something spinal shivers doesn’t contribute much to. The more pressure a build can exert while being played defensively, the more overpowered it becomes in a pvp scenario. Core and reaper necros lack this sense of pressure because they are constantly under fire and are usually the first to die, and lack the ability to go on the offensive. Scourge was OP because it could exert massive Condi pressure while being able to relieve pressure on themselves by way of barriers, boom removal and aids in a huge radius around them.

 

Likewise, mesmers are more or less capable of the same thing.

 

Good players mostly know about this and do their best to exert pressure while playing defensively. In the midst of combat it appears they are playing offensively, but in reality they are just outpressuring you, forcing you to play defensive and thus giving them more leeway to go on the offensive.

 

Spinal Shivers and it’s corresponding trait don’t have an impact on this unless necros gain capabilities to sustain a fight, which is kinda happening, but nowhere near where it’s a problem. Remember in order to proc you’d need to get your enemy below 50% HP, which means you have to play offensively to proc it. If you are pressuring your opponent, then it defeats the purpose of SS because it’s a burst ability.

 

Hope that makes sense

[ZDragon.3046]

I think the trait has its uses

I think its burst potential is low enough not to really matter with the current changes that are going on.

Its got a reasonable cooldown and the damage is controlled by the number of boons on a foe after which it only deals damage once you strike them at 50% or lower. There is a lot going on here to achieve its max potential and simply for that reason I think its fine as is even heading into the future.

 

Chill of Death It will always be a good pvp pick going against professions like guardian, thief, elementalist, etc things with low hp values that will often get executed if you manage to get a good critical chill of death on them at 50% or lower.

Against many professions though it wont execute them due to life saving passives or having sheerly higher hp Warrior, Ranger, other necromancers etc.

 

In pve it will always be trumped by the current **"Awaken the pain"** Even **"Dread"** offers more potential in theory when it comes to this side of the game.

 

Although you pointing out that its not lesser is just lack of quality then again there are some other professions that have traits similarly that are objectively "not lesser" as well but trigger under specific conditions such as heal...etc. In necros case its hitting a foe under 50%. Not having a tell is not a really big deal either there would not even be a way to properly incorporate this without making it flat out clunky not to mention other skills/bonuses that trigger on hit passively would need to undergo the same treatment as they also have no tell. If it was good against everything i could maybe start to see a balance issue but because its not i think its fine as is because its something you still have to work for.

 

I dont specifically want **"chill of death"** to change but at the same time i don't feel like its going to get any better or worse if it does not change. Its a solid trait that likely needs no real balancing at all its one of the few spite traits thats always been pretty solid.

[Nimon.7840]

It's a great trait.

As it only triggers when target is below 50% it really helps, keeping the enemy close to you and gives reaper a bit of boonhate in this boonspam meta, where every other class has such easy access to boons

[Dadnir.5038]

Note that I'm just opening this thread because I've seen a revenant crying about being reckt in second by a reaper (classifying necromancer as a "spammy noob profession" at the same time) and in the linked logs, it was abvious that the main culprit in it's demise was a _chill of death_ proc that crited him for almost 6k while he was eating eagerly a _soul spiral_ with his glass canon body.

 

That's why I wonder whether a 6k crit on an automated proc was intended or not when they created the trait and if this is enough to threaten PvP balance.

 

Now I agree that there is quite a few counters to this and the first and foremost being to avoid being hit by a reaper in shroud while under 50% health. I just open the discussion so that everyone can talk about it without worry.

[foste.3098]

when i play reaper i usually get a proc of ~2-3k depending on might and if there is protection involved, and this is on a paladin amulet. It is not so much that it is an auto proc (to be clear i resent passive traits be they a passive immunity or damage) but the thing is as long as you know the necro is in spite you should expect it to come so in this sense it has a 'tell'.

The issue is not so much the damage of a singe passive trait but when you stack damage procs (shivers, chilling nova, air/blood sigils in wvw, even spiteful spirit can be counted here) on top of other high damage skills, it can create this cascade of procs that chunk for most of a players hp; it is not fun to loose because you got clipped by a skill and 4 other things triggered from it to kill you, and necro used to be infamous for this back in the frost fire mercenary era.

 

To the guy that was complaining - if he plays a marauder or zerker build he should expect high incoming crits from a class that can self might & vuln stack to 25.

[KrHome.1920]

The trait is fine as it is. It is a must have to be able to kill a lot of encounters. Without it reaper gets a 100% lose chance against any thief build and incredible hard matchups against holo, soulbeast, guardian/dh, weaver.

 

As long as we want to spec into 1v1 capability is is a must pick trait. Even ANet knows that as they did not nerf it yet.

 

The only thing I can imagine as a replacement without totally messing up reaper is something like magebane tether (spellbreaker gm trait) that forces our target to stay into melee range.

 

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> That's why I wonder whether a 6k crit on an automated proc was intended or not when they created the trait and if this is enough to threaten PvP balance.

In that specific situation he ran into a reaper with 260% crit chance that could strip 3 boons with lesser spinal shivers. That's only happening when you eat that proc while the reaper is in shroud and specc'd into Onslaught and Death Perception while running berserk gear.

 

I said it in the trait already. He could have avoided that easily if he was actually a competent player, but he decided to melee a glass reaper in shroud while being in glass gear hinself while having at least 3 boons applied.

 

He did literally EVERYTHING wrong you could do wrong in that situation and he deserved the proc.

[Hesacon.8735]

Chill of Death is in a good place. It's meant to be a counter to classes that spam boons, so it's seldom useful against classes like ranger and many mesmers, but happens to eat revs because they use a lot of boons.

 

Arenanet has said they wanted counter play to be a thing and this trait is the perfect example of a counter play option. It also has a 20 second cooldown so you can't exactly spam it.

 

You can even counter play this counter play by keeping your health above 50%.

[Shroud.2307]

Well... Not that WvW is a particularly balanced environment but, during a fight against a Revenant some time last week, I got a pretty disgusting double proc.

 

I intentionally try to time Spinal Shivers so that it sets off Chill Of Death along with it for a higher burst. The poor fellow I hit took an 11k Spinal Shivers and 9k Chill Of Death simultaneously.

 

I don't think necessarily needs a nerf but, because of the amount of damage Necro can now do, you're very right, it's starting to become a pretty scary trait.

[Shroud.2307]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> Note that I'm just opening this thread because I've seen a revenant crying about being reckt in second by a reaper (classifying necromancer as a "spammy noob profession" at the same time) and in the linked logs, it was abvious that the main culprit in it's demise was a _chill of death_ proc that crited him for almost 6k while he was eating eagerly a _soul spiral_ with his glass canon body.

>

> That's why I wonder whether a 6k crit on an automated proc was intended or not when they created the trait and if this is enough to threaten PvP balance.

>

> Now I agree that there is quite a few counters to this and the first and foremost being to avoid being hit by a reaper in shroud while under 50% health. I just open the discussion so that everyone can talk about it without worry.

 

Lol, oh... I read through more of the comments after posting and saw this. Do you happen to have screenshots? I'm curious if that Reaper was me.

 

I play Marauder/Berserker + Strength runes and full DPS traits in WvW. Since I aim to kill people as quickly as possible, I also pay close attention to health percentage so I can get double Spinal Shivers proc's. With 25 Might (which is easy to reach) I've hit a _lot_ of people for enough damage to kill them twice once they hit 50%. I agree with many of the comments in this thread and I don't think the trait is OP or anything but, it's creeping up to that point where I could see complaints coming forth.

[KrHome.1920]

> @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

> Well... Not that WvW is a particularly balanced environment but, during a fight against a Revenant some time last week, I got a pretty disgusting double proc.

>

> I intentionally try to time Spinal Shivers so that it sets off Chill Of Death along with it for a higher burst. The poor fellow I hit took an 11k Spinal Shivers and 9k Chill Of Death simultaneously.

>

> I don't think necessarily needs a nerf but, because of the amount of damage Necro can now do, you're very right, it's starting to become a pretty scary trait.

I bet that guy was in green gear.

 

I duelled enough glass reapers to know what lesser spinal shivers does when you are in ascended gear. The 6k proc we were talking about above is pretty much the maximum you can pull of on 2k armor as long as the reaper is not buffed further by party members.

 

Lesser spinal shivers has a damage multiplier of **1.2** @ 3 boons (the wiki is wrong and shows the buffed focus 5 numbers).

 

[Dadnir.5038]

@"SpellOfIniquity.1780"

Just a copy paste from the other thread:

[https://ibb.co/jTPrCK](https://ibb.co/jTPrCK "https://ibb.co/jTPrCK")

 

 

[Nimon.7840]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> @"SpellOfIniquity.1780"

> Just a copy paste from the other thread:

> [https://ibb.co/jTPrCK](https://ibb.co/jTPrCK "https://ibb.co/jTPrCK")

>

>

 

But the ref that got killed here was full offensive. No def-stats.

So it's very unlikely that you get hit by it with 6k.

Also it's most of the times very hard to pull of, as good players will just kite the reaper or cc him.

 

With the power creep that is happening nowadays it's pretty stupid to roam around with no armor.

You should be somewhere between 2500 and 2700, to get at least some dmg reduction

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"SpellOfIniquity.1780"

> > Just a copy paste from the other thread:

> > [https://ibb.co/jTPrCK](https://ibb.co/jTPrCK "https://ibb.co/jTPrCK")

> >

> >

>

> But the ref that got killed here was full offensive. No def-stats.

> So it's very unlikely that you get hit by it with 6k.

> Also it's most of the times very hard to pull of, as good players will just kite the reaper or cc him.

>

> With the power creep that is happening nowadays it's pretty stupid to roam around with no armor.

> You should be somewhere between 2500 and 2700, to get at least some dmg reduction

 

Ah but this thread is for the love of discussion :) . Such thread allow necromancers to be prepared when faced by haters that died suddenly to a necromancer then take their straw hats and pitch before saying that there is a need to burn the witch (necromancer). Beside, I think I've already seen a thread poping in the PvP forum about something related to this thread, it wasn't long...

[felincyriac.5981]

It's fine where it is, esp when you have thiefs running around with 20k backstabs :)

[Nimon.7840]

Easy change for PvP and wvw?

Half all dmg and healing in these gamemodes only.

[ZDragon.3046]

> @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > > @"SpellOfIniquity.1780"

> > > Just a copy paste from the other thread:

> > > [https://ibb.co/jTPrCK](https://ibb.co/jTPrCK "https://ibb.co/jTPrCK")

> > >

> > >

> >

> > But the ref that got killed here was full offensive. No def-stats.

> > So it's very unlikely that you get hit by it with 6k.

> > Also it's most of the times very hard to pull of, as good players will just kite the reaper or cc him.

> >

> > With the power creep that is happening nowadays it's pretty stupid to roam around with no armor.

> > You should be somewhere between 2500 and 2700, to get at least some dmg reduction

>

> Ah but this thread is for the love of discussion :) . Such thread allow necromancers to be prepared when faced by haters that died suddenly to a necromancer then take their straw hats and pitch before saying that there is a need to burn the witch (necromancer). Beside, I think I've already seen a thread poping in the PvP forum about something related to this thread, it wasn't long...

 

Next you will have to make one about Necro signets and how broken they are especially Signet of Spite on a pure power build... man using that active instantly makes you condition and it needs to be nerfed ;D *Wheezing laughter*

 

Jokes aside that actually happend to me the other day.

[Shroud.2307]

About > @"Nimon.7840" said:

> > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > @"SpellOfIniquity.1780"

> > Just a copy paste from the other thread:

> > [https://ibb.co/jTPrCK](https://ibb.co/jTPrCK "https://ibb.co/jTPrCK")

> >

> >

>

> But the ref that got killed here was full offensive. No def-stats.

> So it's very unlikely that you get hit by it with 6k.

> Also it's most of the times very hard to pull of, as good players will just kite the reaper or cc him.

>

> With the power creep that is happening nowadays it's pretty stupid to roam around with no armor.

> You should be somewhere between 2500 and 2700, to get at least some dmg reduction

 

I'm going to collect some screen shots for a few days to see if I can recreate the burst I was talking about. Unfortunately this one wasn't ideal since I didn't get the double Spinal Shivers proc but, you can still see the Lesser version doing more than 6k here.

 

https://imgur.com/a/6XbHWyo

[Obtena.7952]

I've always been uncomfortable with it and I believe the reason is that I think it works backwards.

 

It seems 'cheap' to get these big, strong effects on someone who is already half in the bag. I think it should proc on people above 50%, not below. You still get a strong impact from it, but you still need to work to get them down to zero.

 

 

[Sigmoid.7082]

The biggest buff to this ability was the increase in the a stage number of boons someone has.

[KrHome.1920]

> @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

> I'm going to collect some screen shots for a few days to see if I can recreate the burst I was talking about. Unfortunately this one wasn't ideal since I didn't get the double Spinal Shivers proc but, you can still see the Lesser version doing more than 6k here.

>

> https://imgur.com/a/6XbHWyo

This is very specific situation where you have been buffed heavily and fought a heavily debuffed target on poor gear - like you were full glass, he was full glass, you had 25 might, he had 25 vulnerability and maybe even more buffs for you flying around.

 

Your 6k Life Rend proves that. You do 6k Life Rends every duel or smallscale? I am pretty sure you don't. You won't even do 4k regularly.

 

_edit: removed nonsense (mixed up Life Rend with Dusk Strike)_

 

 

 

[Shroud.2307]

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> > @"SpellOfIniquity.1780" said:

> > I'm going to collect some screen shots for a few days to see if I can recreate the burst I was talking about. Unfortunately this one wasn't ideal since I didn't get the double Spinal Shivers proc but, you can still see the Lesser version doing more than 6k here.

> >

> > https://imgur.com/a/6XbHWyo

> This is very specific situation where you have been buffed heavily and fought a heavily debuffed target on poor gear - like you were full glass, he was full glass, you had 25 might, he had 25 vulnerability and maybe even more buffs for you flying around.

>

> Your 6k Life Rend proves that. You do 6k Life Rends every duel or smallscale? I am pretty sure you don't. You won't even do 4k regularly.

>

> _edit: removed nonsense (mixed up Life Rend with Dusk Strike)_

>

>

>

 

Really? Hm.. I definitely need to start recording some things then because I hit people for 10k+ Life Rends somewhat regularly.

 

He was not in poor gear as far as I could tell, though I have no proof of that. Certainly didn't look like a new player. But, I'm not going to argue this point any further since I have nothing to back any of it up yet.

 

Still, I was not then nor am I now saying any of this in favor of having Chill of Death (or anything about Necro, really) nerfed. Just trying to defend my point that the damage I often do is not an exaggeration.

 

**EDIT:**

Ah, so it turns out I do have at least one screenshot of Chill of Death doing over 10k. This one was taken last week.

https://imgur.com/a/3JATHua

[KrHome.1920]

Like I said in WvW you don't know what you encounter. It's not representative. You won't reach these numbers, when your opponent is geared properly.

 

WvW is full of extremes. You can gear for extreme damage on full glass opponents while still doing almost no damage on a bunker build.

 

A stealth maul hits me with way more than 10k, when I go glass - a malicious backstab or mesmer burst even oneshots me on 21k HP when I go full glass. That's how WvW works. Get some armor and survive!

 

CoD is countered by every 50% no damage trait in the game.

 

**TL;DR:** Too many variables to justify a nerf.