NECRO BALANCE NOTES

[KrHome.1920]

Conclusion after 4 hours of WvW smallscale roaming on Spectral Onslaught:

build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAndBnc0g12AG3A0biFcBL+KuFLjUdh4wzC6qFAOAA-j1xHQBK7JAAgTBQP2fghKB/nyv3p+z30HEA4A48m38zDc+5nf+5n33nf+5nf+5nf+5nHA-w

 

Definitely a nerf. Shroudburst is nonexistent anymore. CoD and SS are just for debuffing purposes. Sustain got a heavy nerf (mainly because of the current state of Spectral Armor).

 

I experimented wigh Spectral Ring, CPC, Spectral Grasp, Suffer!, NCSY! and Corrupt Boon as 3rd utility skill and everything feels weaker than before. The SW cleansing is not nessessary as the sigil gets the job done properly.

 

The cooldown reductions, the Soul Barbs damage increase and the slightly higher LF pool are irrelevant and hardly to notice.

 

Spectral Armor buff is heavily needed.

[Zero.3871]

i mean this **** Company, deleted last gasp (because passive lifesavers are OP) while engis and Warriors still jump into their INVULNS over and over again. its a bad joke, what is anets Business with necros. how IMCOMOPETENT CAN ANET BE?

[Lahmia.2193]

> @"Zero.3871" said:

> i mean this **** Company, deleted last gasp (because passive lifesavers are OP) while engis and Warriors still jump into their INVULNS over and over again. its a bad joke, what is anets Business with necros. how IMCOMOPETENT CAN ANET BE?

 

Engineer lost their passive Elixir S trait in favour of one that grants 3k barrier and protection instead.

[OutOfOrder.3719]

Does taking Vital Persistance now improve barrier percent by +10% on just the Necro or the entire team that receives Barrier.

 

Techically, barrier % is effected by healing power.

[Markus.9162]

Don't think its a power reaper buff, since we lose the 10% dmg in soul reaping when our life force is over 50 % and get 10% dmg when we enter or exit shroud.

We'll see but I don't think there will be much of a difference dps wise.

 

Edit:

I saw a post on reddit from majesticnoodle and well it's a nerf... well

[Aktium.9506]

The new Vital Persistence works on Parasitic Contagion apparently. It's really noticeable actually even though it's only +2% on top of the 10% from Contagion.

[Lahmia.2193]

> @"OutOfOrder.3719" said:

> Does taking Vital Persistance now improve barrier percent by +10% on just the Necro or the entire team that receives Barrier.

>

> Techically, barrier % is effected by healing power.

 

Barrier is effected by healing power but is not healing. So no, it isn't effected by barrier.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

I’ve tested spectral walk and it’s relationship with other condition cleanses

 

Spectral walk will not give you life force from other abilities (for example if you had 7 conditions on you and used spectral walk followed by consume conditions, you will not gain 28% life force.) I couldn’t really test whether it was an internal mechanic of spectral walk or whether it’s barred by an ICD

 

So ya. Spectral walk will be a big buff for those in WVW that use it with antitoxin runes. And it’s a much needed buff on spvp but the loss of duration hinders it a bit. Less potential engages an disengages.

[lodjur.1284]

So scourge loses free spectral armor but gets 10% more healing from allies...

 

So anet is actively embracing the real sustain mechanic for necro, having a pet firebrand

[Alendar.3195]

I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but the Soul Barbs 10 second buff procs when you enter as well as leave shroud. It does not seem to stack on it's self (can't tap in and out for a 20 second buff), but allows you to shroud for 10 seconds and then leave and get another 10 seconds of additional damage.

[Aslakh.3072]

Good to see that the abrasive grit change was temporary and that they fixed it. You can never be sure lol. Not a fan of the other changes tbh as I liked the 20% cooldown reduction on shroud skills and i agree with others who consider this mostly a nerf.

[DeceiverX.8361]

VP officially a trash trait and necro being pushed more into glass cannon thanks to our PvE overlords.

 

Must feel good to be a ranger this patch. Basically nothing changed and everyone got nerfed and easier to kill.

[EremiteAngel.9765]

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > @"Psycoprophet.8107" said:

> > > @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> > > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > > i love how anet MISSED THE ONE SPECTRAL SKILL THAT PEOPLE USE THE MOST....

> > > > Spectral armor got no love at the loss of the trait that increased its effectiveness how do you miss the most important spectral skill after removing the trait for them

> > >

> > > Correct me if I am wrong but, wasn't Spectral Armour by far the best spectral skill? I felt it was leaps and bounds ahead of the rest in terms of usefulness, so I'm not surprised they didn't add anything.

> >

> > I think he means with these changes spectral walk etc was compensated for the over all nerf to spectral skills exept spectral armor which got no compensation and just nerfed yet was the best of the lot and now it’s just ok and other spectral skills went from meh to ok

>

> I mean in comparing it to break stun like skill throughout the entire game. Spectral armor was the best of all the spectral skills yes but if you start looking at other skills in the game that are often used to break stun or for a short time reduce damage or improve sustain it was by far one of the weakest.

> - You could get stunned > break stun> get stunned right after because no stability

> - The protection could be ripped off easily making it so damage was not reduced at all.

> - It didnt protect you from conditions at all making it have clear cut counter play.

> - It didnt move you at all or stop projectile damage block attacks etc etc you get what i mean it was by far overall a weaker break stun from the start.

>

> Unless that trait that increases LF gain from all sources drastically improves lf gain on weapons reaper is legit screwed without blighters boon. I guess this is their way of indirectly buffing the weight of blighters boon.

>

> They just made SR come back into the meta like a few months ago by all means i saw no reason to do this many changes to it granted some of them were nice they didnt even hit some of the traits that needed tune ups the most **foot in the grave** for one.

 

For FITG, if they just made Reaper Shroud cool down baseline at 7 seconds, it would naturally enhance the trait among other things.

[Hesacon.8735]

> @"lodjur.1284" said:

> So scourge loses free spectral armor but gets 10% more healing from allies...

>

> So anet is actively embracing the real sustain mechanic for necro, having a pet firebrand

 

The way skills and traits worded like this usually work is you qualify as your own ally, so it should increase your own healing by 10%. That's nothing to sneeze at. I'd be curious if it also affects life steal healing.

[lodjur.1284]

> @"Hesacon.8735" said:

> > @"lodjur.1284" said:

> > So scourge loses free spectral armor but gets 10% more healing from allies...

> >

> > So anet is actively embracing the real sustain mechanic for necro, having a pet firebrand

>

> The way skills and traits worded like this usually work is you qualify as your own ally, so it should increase your own healing by 10%. That's nothing to sneeze at. I'd be curious if it also affects life steal healing.

 

Life steal healing is basically a meme lol.

Scourge self-heals are pathetic. Well necro in general has the worst solo sustain in the game.

Firebrand heals are big and good

 

On a less sarcastic note

I am well aware that the 10% works (or at least should work, haven't tested it) on self-healing. It is just worse than a free spectral armor for your sustain when solo as all your self-heals are utterly pathetic. My entire last post was just making fun of the fact that anet nerfed scourge sustain while solo and buffed it when you have a babysitter.

[EremiteAngel.9765]

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > @"Dadnir.5038" said:

> > > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > > i love how anet MISSED THE ONE SPECTRAL SKILL THAT PEOPLE USE THE MOST....

> > > Spectral armor got no love at the loss of the trait that increased its effectiveness how do you miss the most important spectral skill after removing the trait for them

> >

> > To be fair I think _reaper's protection_ change are there to compensate for the loss of _last gasp_. 4s of protection on a 20 second CD when CC and reduced condition damage taken while under the effect of protection... Coming from ANet, I believe that it's already more than they usually are ready to give. (Not that I won't mourn the LF on spectral skills use or _last gasp_)

>

> 20 second cool down is not accurate compensation for that in pvp setting to be honest. we are talking about a skill that generated quite a bit of life force on builds that are often starved for life force. to be fair gaining protection on cc is not going to do much good. If they wanted to do that they could have just had spectral activate like balance stance does on warriors.

>

> SOOOOO many little things they could have done to properly compensate for spectral armors loss of the trait and the lesser spectral armor

> - can not be critically hit while spectral armor is active

> - a few stacks of stability or spectral armors duration

> - Base increased time on spectral armor

> - a lower cooldown on spectral armor

> - charges on spectral armor while reducing the up time to make it more "Active"

>

> Even spectral walk is some what poorly executed imo

> In the event you simply dont have conditions up near the start or have to end the skill early you lose out completely while now gaining 0 benefit at least before if you got hit regardless you got something. A better buff would have been movement impairing conditions cannot be applied for its duration promoting the mobility benefit of of taking the skill. of all things we did not need sub par passive condition removal here.

>

> Spectral Ring was a good call and the only good call out of all of this but even thats slightly screwed by a interval application time thats likely longer than the base fear. We didnt see other walls and rings (that are weapon skills no less) that knock back get this treatment im not sure why spectral wall needed to get that for as weak of a condition as fear is.

>

> This is a bit overly annoying to me

 

The spectral ring internal CD defeats the purpose of it being a ring. As you said, it should work like the rest, requiring stab or in our case an additional way in condi resistance to get out. Now, there are 4 ways for foes to get out due to the icd.

 

1) stability

2) resistance

3) condi clear and walk out

4) stun break and walk out

 

Method 3 and 4 were not possible when it was still a wall before. You can't just walk past the wall without having 1 or 2.

Overall I would say it is a nerf as we can't stand on the wall now and prevent melee engagement from jumping on us more than once during its duration.

 

How big is the ring btw anyone know? And it's cast time.

[Conqueror.3682]

Death nova is such a poisonfest when in Palawadan or Great hall.

 

Righ now im trying 2 Builds: A minionmancer one to kill many trash mobs and a terrormancer one with increased fear duration.

[Morde.3158]

Trash changes

[dceptaconroy.7928]

"Change for changes sake doesn't always equal progress".

[Crinn.7864]

> @"Methuselah.4376" said:

> So in essence, it has been made baseline since it is a minor, allowing us to take Soul Barbs :D

 

And then you realize that they removed the 10% modifier from Strength of Undeath. Basically they eliminated the existing Master Minor, moved the 2nd Master Major into the Master Minor, and then took the damage mod from the Grandmaster Major and made it the new Master Major.

[RisenHowl.2419]

Resulting in no spectral armor and took the spectral trait out entirely, making those traits trash.

 

They added an icd to the fear ring too, making it trash.

 

Reaper can't compete in plat+ now at all, you either have sustain and no damage or damage and no sustain. Against every meta build that has high damage and rely on instant defenses and invulnerability to deny burst. On reaper now, you have two dodges and then you're dead =D

[KrHome.1920]

> @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> I’ve tested spectral walk and it’s relationship with other condition cleanses

>

> Spectral walk will not give you life force from other abilities (for example if you had 7 conditions on you and used spectral walk followed by consume conditions, you will not gain 28% life force.) I couldn’t really test whether it was an internal mechanic of spectral walk or whether it’s barred by an ICD

Of course not. The mechanic is equal to Well of Power. But instead converting one condition to a boon every (1) second, it converts one condition to 4% LF every 2 seconds.

 

When you cast Consume Conditions while under the effect of Spectral Walk, the latter will convert the self vulnerability to LF.

 

> @"Markus.9162" said:

> I saw a post on reddit from majesticnoodle and well it's a nerf... well

I watched that DPS golem video. It surprised me. DPS went down to 29,5k.

 

The only damage nerf to the PvE meta build is that Chilling Nova can't crit anymore but got its base damage increased by 25%. Soul Barbs should more than compensate that. Maybe there is a bug somewhere or other classes party buffs were nerfed (which I did not check).

 

[Nimon.7840]

> @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> Spectral Wall: This skill has been renamed Spectral Ring. It now creates a circular ring instead of a line. Its duration has been split between games modes, lasting 8 seconds in PvE and 5 seconds in PvP and WvW. This skill cannot apply fear to the same foe more than once every 1.5 seconds.

 

Nice change, but I don't think, this will make spectral ring played more often than spectral wall

 

> Spectral Walk: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 50 seconds to 40 seconds. It now consumes 1 condition every 2 seconds it's active (up to 6 conditions at its full duration), converting each condition into 4% life force. It no longer grants life force when the necromancer takes damage.

 

Interesting change, I like it.

 

> Lich Form: The recharge time of this skill has been reduced from 180 seconds to 150 seconds.

 

Useless because lich form still exists.

 

> Reaper's Protection: This trait has been renamed Dark Defiance. It now causes necromancers to gain protection for 3 seconds when affected by control effects and causes protection that is applied to the necromancer to reduce their incoming condition damage by 20%. This trait has a cooldown of 20 seconds.

> Abrasive Grit: The internal cooldown of this trait has been removed. This trait now only activates from necromancer skills and traits that apply barrier. It now grants 2 stacks of might for 6 seconds.

 

Hey. Finally they listened and admitted with this patch, that they did something wrong. Good job anet.

 

> Chill of Death: The damage of this trait has been increased by 20% in PvE, and it will no longer be able to critically hit foes. The damage displayed in its tooltip has been fixed in PvP and WvW.

> Chilling Nova: The damage of this trait has been increased by 25% in PvE, and it will no longer be able to critically hit foes in all game modes.

> Death Nova: The time between jagged horror summons has been reduced from 15 seconds to 3 seconds for this trait. A maximum of 5 jagged horrors can be summoned at a time. Summoning a new jagged horror after reaching this maximum will kill the oldest jagged horror.

 

Yay. Even better for afk farming.

 

> Fear of Death: The fear-duration bonus of this trait has been increased to 100%. It no longer causes fear when the necromancer is in a downed state. Instead, it now grants 15% life force upon inflicting a foe with fear. This effect has a 5-second internal cooldown.

 

Very interesting change. Especially with the fixed dread.

 

> Gluttony: The might that this trait grants has been removed. It now increases the amount of life force gained from all sources instead of just from skills.

 

Hm... I don't know. The might wasn't mentionable, that we got from this trait, so I guess it's a buff

 

> Necromantic Corruption: Fixed a bug in which minions took conditions from allies other than the necromancer. Added a visual effect when this trait activates to indicate which minion is taking the necromancer's condition.

 

Doesn't matter as deathmagic still is very very bad.

 

> Last Gasp: This trait has been replaced with Sinister Shroud.

> Sinister Shroud: This trait has replaced Last Gasp. It reduces the recharge time of shroud skills by 15%.

 

Interesting to make cd reduction baseline. But very bad to take away a passive defense trait. Did they also take away other classes auto invulns?

Did we get damage for that? No I don't think so.

 

> Soul Barbs: This trait has replaced Spectral Mastery in the Master tier. It grants a 10% damage increase to all attacks for 10 seconds whenever necromancers enter or exit a shroud.

 

The nerf and buff at the same time -thing again.

Good for PvP(even though it makes reaper even more predictable and shows the enemy, when necro is able to activate shroud again), not so good for pve (you need to do the rotation perfectly to get 100% uptime on power reaper) but also good at the same time, because now it doesn't matter, if you get hit in shroud by big damage skills.

 

> Spectral Mastery: This trait has been replaced with Soul Barbs. Spectral Wall, Spectral Walk, and Lich Form have been updated as a result.

> Spiteful Spirit: The damage of this trait has been increased by 25% in PvE, and it will no longer be able to critically hit foes in all game modes.

 

Already said something about this.

 

> Strength of Undeath: This trait has been renamed Soul Battery. Its bonus damage has been removed while the necromancer is above the life-force threshold. The maximum life force has been increased from 15% to 20%.

 

Whatever. Doesn't really matter.

 

> Terror: Fixed a bug in which the damage that is listed for this trait did not reflect its actual damage.

 

That really took a very long time to fix that bug. Anyone tested it? :D good job anet

 

> Vital Persistence: This trait no longer reduces the recharge time of shroud skills. Instead, it increases all incoming healing by 20% in PvE and by 10% in PvP and WvW. Its vitality bonus is unchanged.

 

Kinda useless I guess. As you still cannot be healed in shroud. But this might give us a bunker build?!

 

> Weakening Shroud: The damage of this trait has been increased by 20% in PvE, and it will no longer be able to critically hit foes in all game modes.

>

>

> They fixed Abrasive Grit. My Christmas wish came true! Thank you Anet :)

 

 

[Methuselah.4376]

> @"Crinn.7864" said:

> > @"Methuselah.4376" said:

> > So in essence, it has been made baseline since it is a minor, allowing us to take Soul Barbs :D

>

> And then you realize that they removed the 10% modifier from Strength of Undeath. Basically they eliminated the existing Master Minor, moved the 2nd Master Major into the Master Minor, and then took the damage mod from the Grandmaster Major and made it the new Master Major.

 

Fuck...can't believe I missed that :open_mouth:

[Nimon.7840]

> @"KrHome.1920" said:

> > @"JusticeRetroHunter.7684" said:

> > I’ve tested spectral walk and it’s relationship with other condition cleanses

> >

> > Spectral walk will not give you life force from other abilities (for example if you had 7 conditions on you and used spectral walk followed by consume conditions, you will not gain 28% life force.) I couldn’t really test whether it was an internal mechanic of spectral walk or whether it’s barred by an ICD

> Of course not. The mechanic is equal to Well of Power. But instead converting one condition to a boon every (1) second, it converts one condition to 4% LF every 2 seconds.

>

> When you cast Consume Conditions while under the effect of Spectral Walk, the latter will convert the self vulnerability to LF.

>

> > @"Markus.9162" said:

> > I saw a post on reddit from majesticnoodle and well it's a nerf... well

> I watched that DPS golem video. It surprised me. DPS went down to 29,5k.

>

> The only damage nerf to the PvE meta build is that Chilling Nova can't crit anymore but got its base damage increased by 25%. Soul Barbs should more than compensate that. Maybe there is a bug somewhere or other classes party buffs were nerfed (which I did not check).

>

 

Then you should maybe look better into it. Soul barb's isn't a buff. They removed the mod from strength of undeath.