NECRO BALANCE NOTES

[lodjur.1284]

I am not sure if this was an attempt at butchering power reaper in PvP/WvW or an attempt at buffing it in PvE, if the first alternative was their invention they succeeded.

 

PvP perspective

 

In short they shuffled the soul reaping traits around and power reaper ends up with 1 very relevant trait less

 

Spectral mastery no longer exists at all (no compensation you picked it up for better armor)

Soul barbs is really just a slightly better version of the damage part of "strength of undeath"

 

Comparing it to the previous situation means

 

You gain a tiny bit of damage as soul barbs is more reliable

You gain 5% more lifeforce

 

You lose 1 very relevant proc (spectral armor)

You lose a tiny bit of might

 

If you were playing Vital Persistence before you also lost 5% shroud cds and 180 vitality

 

If you were playing spectral mastery before you basically get railroaded into a worse version of the old Vital Persistence route.

 

In addition all the procs got nerfed again which hurts reaper more than other builds cause of high crit chance and many of the procs being good. Especially Spiteful Spirit seems harsh to not return to the old value now that it can't crit (which it very close to always did cause of death perception) meaning that's about another 60% (depending on ferocity) damage taken away from it. Spiteful spirit's damage has been nerfed by 80%, this is quite brutal.

 

PvE perspective

 

You gain slightly better damage cause of soul barbs but that's probably compensated by the loss of 5% shroud cds and no crits on chilling nova. In conclusion nothing changes.

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"DeceiverX.8361" said:

> 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.

 

How you manage to conclude that the patch changes are there to satisfy "our PvE overlord" is beyond my understanding. The PvP subforum have been begging, on their knee, for months already, to see nerfs on passive defensive and offensive traits. And the necromancer's patch is litterally just that.

 

_Chill of death, chilling nova, reaper's protection, fear of death, last gasp, spiteful spirit, weakening shroud_. All of them had there passive damage or passive "defense" nerfed and this is definitely not to sate PvE needs or want. As for the change to VP moving the CD reduction on the baseline of the traitline, it was something more than needed for build diversity in all gamemodes. The fact that they slapped shroud necromancers in the face with their 20% increased incoming healing certainly isn't to confort PvE players either.

[Hesacon.8735]

> @"lodjur.1284" said:

> > @"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.

 

I'll miss the free spectral armor too.

 

I've had some success this season of spvp running scourge with signet of vampirism, rune of sanctuary, and blood magic. Blood magic is mostly to get allies up who don't understand positioning, but the life steal does proc the runes.

 

Now my question is if I drop spite or blood magic to take advantage of this trait, since the "target the necro" meme is real. I'll probably drop blood, but the synergy between this trait, sanctuary runes, the signet trait, and this trait could be a setup that sees some play time.

[Lily.1935]

I haven't gotten the chance to play with the changes at all. Since I downloaded it and went to sleep before heading to work. To my surprise quite a bit has happened. I'm looking forward to testing some things out. And roaming with a janky minion scourge sound delightful. Since I do roam a lot... Hmm. Mostly I'm interested in seeing if core terror has some niche use. Since terror builds aren't that good but I've been keeping an eye on it. The 15% life force is a massive buffer for core and reaper while giving scourge a free Garish Pillar. Which is great.

 

I'm not sure what to think of Vital persistence. The healing increase is nice. But I'm not sure. If someone could explain this one to me that'd be appreciated.

 

The loss of last gasp is pretty major. It's a huge defensive tool for the necromancer. But hopefully we can make up for it with the other changes. I don't think it's a doom and gloom as some might think.

[Nimon.7840]

> @"Lily.1935" said:

> I haven't gotten the chance to play with the changes at all. Since I downloaded it and went to sleep before heading to work. To my surprise quite a bit has happened. I'm looking forward to testing some things out. And roaming with a janky minion scourge sound delightful. Since I do roam a lot... Hmm. Mostly I'm interested in seeing if core terror has some niche use. Since terror builds aren't that good but I've been keeping an eye on it. The 15% life force is a massive buffer for core and reaper while giving scourge a free Garish Pillar. Which is great.

>

> I'm not sure what to think of Vital persistence. The healing increase is nice. But I'm not sure. If someone could explain this one to me that'd be appreciated.

>

> The loss of last gasp is pretty major. It's a huge defensive tool for the necromancer. But hopefully we can make up for it with the other changes. I don't think it's a doom and gloom as some might think.

 

I'll be trying this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBIhtG2JNiQ5NYPNgtNABi4IYoiDQAUuUbxvOj6dYdB-jVyHQB06IAEQlfHS9H1ofgiKBb3+DK7EA8tHAAAOIAkC4zdaA-w

 

Even though i feel like it's little bit too much toughness.

 

And the power variant:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQRBHbtG2JHNQvNY5NgtNABi4oWootxaUtwEIAmh4GkBlAA-jVCBQBeRp2JVCil9HAwJAQhq/oRlF6T/wGOCAB4hAQKAWnsB-w

[folk.8190]

> @"Methuselah.4376" said:

> I am so happy :smile:

 

HAppy about what ?????????????????????????? [

"https://youtube.com/watch?v=Horo_zky7ko&feature=youtu.be")

 

 

[Methuselah.4376]

> @"folk.8190" said:

> > @"Methuselah.4376" said:

> > I am so happy :smile:

>

> HAppy about what ?????????????????????????? [

"https://youtube.com/watch?v=Horo_zky7ko&feature=youtu.be")

>

>

 

I was under a misapprehension. I thought Soul Barbs was a +10% extra, didn't realize it replaced Strength of Undeath :(

[ZDragon.3046]

> @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> > @"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.

 

But they still get something that triggers as a saving trait that grants some sort of damage reduction in a way we lost our ability and 2nd wind to gain life force and thats major to any build that runs soul reaping. Anet really had no place in removing last gasp regardless of what they chose to put there.

 

you can argue that the new death magic trait that grants protection on cc is suppose to make up for this BUT THAT DOES NOT WORK. And its in a line thats still complete trash. I hate that im forced to run pally reaper now because other wise you simply die far too fast to do anything. Lf generation was considerably crippled in extended fights

 

Spectral mastery was not a problem none of the spectral skills punished a foe for hitting you with a crowd control like the traits "Mirror of anguish" or "Eye for an Eye" Anet kinda messed us up for what could be the rest of the future for reaper. IMO reaper is in the same satate if not worse than berserker warrior now. It still works in PVE but in PvP its now lacking yet again.

The buffs on spectral walk dont make up for the loss in duration or previous effect cause its bad execution and poorly fitted for the skill. It does not specify damaging conditions or mobility conditions which it should so that it could be a bit stronger (or simply remove 4 conditions upon using recall not letting them run over time passively and still melt you. )

Spectral armor is simply not good enough anymore as a 1 time use skill. (it at least needs 2 charge to make up for the passive one we lost)

Spectral ring needs that interval removed. Fear is already weak enough as it is.

[ZDragon.3046]

> @"Lily.1935" said:

> I haven't gotten the chance to play with the changes at all. Since I downloaded it and went to sleep before heading to work. To my surprise quite a bit has happened. I'm looking forward to testing some things out. And roaming with a janky minion scourge sound delightful. Since I do roam a lot... Hmm. Mostly I'm interested in seeing if core terror has some niche use. Since terror builds aren't that good but I've been keeping an eye on it. The 15% life force is a massive buffer for core and reaper while giving scourge a free Garish Pillar. Which is great.

>

Sadly anet still has not fixed the fear durations and how that trait works with them. If you take trait for increased fear duration it wont scale them as a base it acts like expertise meaning you cant stack more fear duration on top of that trait it auto caps your duration at 100% meaning any more expertise or fear duration you try to stack on top is simply a waste. Fears are still too short and to few in number to be considered an effective damage tool. Most of them still cap out around 2 seconds if you are lucky some one wont have resistance or stability or some kind of clear that removes it before its full duration >.< Ughhh....

 

> I'm not sure what to think of Vital persistence. The healing increase is nice. But I'm not sure. If someone could explain this one to me that'd be appreciated.

 

Its simply a 10% flat boost to healing that you gain this applies to all sources that i tried so far. healing for 400 with this trait heals your for a total of 440 Im thinking blood scourge might use this maybe.... Considering that it works on self healing skills its an ok trait. Im not sure this is the right place for it honestly but its there in sr for now.

 

>

> The loss of last gasp is pretty major. It's a huge defensive tool for the necromancer. But hopefully we can make up for it with the other changes. I don't think it's a doom and gloom as some might think.

 

This the most painful for me and its making me question if soul reaping is worth running in pvp right now. The lf sustain factor on reaper after the first time your shroud drops has become drastically bad with no sort of 2nd wind to help you once you burn your active spectral skill or skills you are pretty dry from that point on. Im thinking we might see alot of people go back to spite / blood/ reaper along with taking blighters boon again over RO. Or this is what i plan on trying later.

[Anchoku.8142]

Anyone partner with a protection-sharing profession in PvP with a Spectral-power build, yet?

 

 

[Lahmia.2193]

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

> > @"Lahmia.2193" said:

> > > @"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.

>

> But they still get something that triggers as a saving trait that grants some sort of damage reduction in a way we lost our ability and 2nd wind to gain life force and thats major to any build that runs soul reaping. Anet really had no place in removing last gasp regardless of what they chose to put there.

>

> you can argue that the new death magic trait that grants protection on cc is suppose to make up for this BUT THAT DOES NOT WORK. And its in a line thats still complete trash. I hate that im forced to run pally reaper now because other wise you simply die far too fast to do anything. Lf generation was considerably crippled in extended fights

>

> Spectral mastery was not a problem none of the spectral skills punished a foe for hitting you with a crowd control like the traits "Mirror of anguish" or "Eye for an Eye" Anet kinda messed us up for what could be the rest of the future for reaper. IMO reaper is in the same satate if not worse than berserker warrior now. It still works in PVE but in PvP its now lacking yet again.

> The buffs on spectral walk dont make up for the loss in duration or previous effect cause its bad execution and poorly fitted for the skill. It does not specify damaging conditions or mobility conditions which it should so that it could be a bit stronger (or simply remove 4 conditions upon using recall not letting them run over time passively and still melt you. )

> Spectral armor is simply not good enough anymore as a 1 time use skill. (it at least needs 2 charge to make up for the passive one we lost)

> Spectral ring needs that interval removed. Fear is already weak enough as it is.

 

Oh I agree with most of what you say. I was just stating to the Zero that Engi's safety net trait has been nerfed by a lot. It will no longer save you in the same way it did and does not break stun.

 

Eye for an Eye was also nerfed so you no longer taunt a foe when cc'd.

 

edit: Mesmer had their "copy cc to enemy, when they inflict it on you" trait removed and replaced too.

[Lily.1935]

> @"ZDragon.3046" said:

 

> Its simply a 10% flat boost to healing that you gain this applies to all sources that i tried so far. healing for 400 with this trait heals your for a total of 440 Im thinking blood scourge might use this maybe.... Considering that it works on self healing skills its an ok trait. Im not sure this is the right place for it honestly but its there in sr for now.

>

 

I should have better explained myself. I meant why purpose does it serve? It seems really corner case to me so I was asking about its utility. Not about what it did. Like, why would I take this over fear of death? Even ignoring the 100% cap, I see the 15% life force as far more valuable for Builds than extra healing. I'm asking what is it used for? I know what it does, that's extremely clear.

[ZDragon.3046]

> @"Lily.1935" said:

> > @"ZDragon.3046" said:

>

> > Its simply a 10% flat boost to healing that you gain this applies to all sources that i tried so far. healing for 400 with this trait heals your for a total of 440 Im thinking blood scourge might use this maybe.... Considering that it works on self healing skills its an ok trait. Im not sure this is the right place for it honestly but its there in sr for now.

> >

>

> I should have better explained myself. I meant why purpose does it serve? It seems really corner case to me so I was asking about its utility. Not about what it did. Like, why would I take this over fear of death? Even ignoring the 100% cap, I see the 15% life force as far more valuable for Builds than extra healing. I'm asking what is it used for? I know what it does, that's extremely clear.

 

Ahh ok

Putting it like that your question is as good as mine, its out of place. In my personal opinion we lost spectral mastery for no real reason, vital was perfectly fine remaining as an optional choice. Granted its nice now that its a free always have if you pick up soul reaping I still think most of the changes made were really not required or justified. It was just done to say they did something on a line that didn't particularly need those things moved / removed / or shuffled around.

 

Soul reaping was supposedly suppose to "focuses on Death Shroud, staves and life force. As well as the Enhancement shroud and spectral skills." Which it kind of now does not do to some extents.

I guess the staff trait is still there

It still has some boost to shroud in a way.

It no longer does anything for spectral skills despite it boosting a spectral form.

 

Healing ideally does not belong here so I understand your confusion.

[Gazpacho.6941]

I'm kinda sad they removed the might stacks from Gluttony. Guess it's just me through since some people seem to be ok with it. I know in raids you can get might from other classes, but in open world it's nice to be self sufficient.

[Brujeria.7536]

Overall the entire balance patch for necros boils down to a huge nerf disguised by alibi buffs.

 

Shroud uptime got a huge nerf by the removal of the passive spectral armor. Whereas other classes get a shitload of class resources all over the place necros starvation of its lifeforce gets even bigger. Look at how much adrenalin a warrior gets, how many clones a mesmer can spit out with ease, necromancers lifeforce availability is a joke instead, all lifeforce generation is tied to hitting an enemy with certain key skills. needless to say in a dodge and block heavy meta you wont hit your target frequently enough with sayd key skills.

 

You then get some alibi buff like "if you fear you get lifeforce" again, in this meta fear is way too weak, it has more counters then any other CCs or conditions, nullifying this effect. You then get an "100% increased fear duration" which is pointless. Condi builds already have close to 100% duration. for other specs fear is useless, it has way too many counters, since the rune and sigil changes you can simply weapon swap with the right sigil and poof fear is gone. Stab makes immune, resistance makes immune, condi cleans and stun breaks remove it. It literally is the weakest effect in the game and also the necromancer has very little acces too fear. sure you can corrupt stab, but thats more then a luckfest with all the boonspam in the game, requiring no skill and is completly RNG based. For comparison. They could condens all the "3 so clever" traits that revolve around fear into one minor trait and they would still suck, as fear as an effect as well as its applications are way too limited.

 

Further down the line in SR they effectively steal you the permanent added damage when lifeforce is above 50 and give it nerfed back - scourge cant maintain it and they nerf scourge even more, as well as with the "stealth" nerfed cd reduction of shroud skills. Furthermore they give necro a trait that increases incoming healing. This has no effect on scourge. Thi stands in harsh conflict with the other shroud skills. Effectively, the mid tier in SR has no meaningfull choice for condi scourges.

 

They change the fear on CC trait to give protection - and to improve protection - but hey, guess what, what they give back with one hand they claw back with two others, necro now has even less protection uptime AS WELL as even less lifeforce generation because they removed spectral armor. While a warrior still gets free stab, crit immunity, 5 seconds of damage immunity for free - not requiring stats , class resources or anything.

 

Besides this they nerfed all instant damage abilities - well ele and certain other classes got buffs for these traits to compensate - necro not. this is understanable, i mean ele has like 20 more active skills that all can do damage while a necro, who already has lesser skills and now even lesser cooldowns avilable as they nerfed both shroud generation as well as shroud skill cooldowns - get the short end of the stick.

 

Seriously, it is beyond me how they could have not fired this entire balance team yet, its clearly based on severe class bias.

[Sarrs.4831]

Spectral Ring change is deceptively powerful. It'll strip more stacks of Stability and be a better keep-away skill. Actually locking someone inside the ring is a waste of time, but sitting inside the ring yourself is possibly not horrible.

 

Last Gasp is a painful loss, but a necessary one. I always thought this trait was way overbudget as a Master Minor.

 

Dark Defiance seems like a very, very good effect. It is a big shame that Soul Comprehension was not touched, though.

 

Fear of Death seems like a sleeper hit for Terror builds.

 

Removing the chance to critically strike for Spiteful Spirit and Weakening Shroud seems very painful. I have not read the entire list of notes, though, and I think that these passive damage sources being unable to crit may be a gamewide change.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

I don’t kno, I like reaper it’s fun but im the pace of combat these days and the very action type combat necro and its specs seem so slow and clunky compared to rest,I get greatsword feeling weighted but some how so does necro’s movement.i like playing it for short burst and feels really strong in pve but just feel like the slowness is such a disadvantage against actual players compared to the compensation it has gotten to balance its slowness,than again I’m prob not very good on it either lol

[Lahmia.2193]

> @"Sarrs.4831" said:

> Removing the chance to critically strike for Spiteful Spirit and Weakening Shroud seems very painful. I have not read the entire list of notes, though, and I think that these passive damage sources being unable to crit may be a gamewide change.

 

In the list of other professions that had their crits removed:

Ele: Earthen Blast and Sun spot.

Engi: Thermal Release Valve.

Guardian: Glacial Heart and Shattered Aegis.

Mesmers: Power block.

Rev: Spontaneous Destruction.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

Just wish it could move around like say a ranger or ele so I’d feel good to fight with

[Anchoku.8142]

Here are a few generalizations on the patch:

 

1. Auto proc crit's were punished across all professions and given a small compensation for PvE. Because Necro had to do everything in a glass build to begin with, it hurt. I expect some fine tuning to both PvE and PvP/WvW damage in future patches so do not lose hope.

2. The attention to Spectral skills was strange, as was the attention to Soul Reaping. To me, it suggests there were issues with them, or another trait line, perhaps a future one.

3. Death Magic got a little love. Reaper's Protection was a wasted slot and Death Nova is back to being a legitimate MM gimmick from being nerfed to obscurity. However, there is more to do and I hope DM will get its own rework, soon.

4. There is enough change in all professions to warrant Arenanet keeping the new status quo for a while and see how the balance works out but they do, also, push a hot-fix when something is obviously not working as expected. Keep pointing out what you think are serious issues.

5. The change, or shift back to, specific professions being able to share only certain types of boons shows Arenanet is trying to return some individuality to profession functions and force some diversity and team reliance. I hope that trend continues.

6. Deleting Spectral Mastery without making at least its ICD reduction and duration increase baseline feels bad. I think they set Spectral skills up for deletion from the game. Spectral Mastery gave a significant (40%?) up-time increase. The ICD reductions on Walk, Wall, and Lich still result in a hard nerf. Armor's nerf was doubly hard.

[RisenHowl.2419]

> @"Sarrs.4831" said:

> Spectral Ring change is deceptively powerful. It'll strip more stacks of Stability and be a better keep-away skill. Actually locking someone inside the ring is a waste of time, but sitting inside the ring yourself is possibly not horrible.

>

> Last Gasp is a painful loss, but a necessary one. I always thought this trait was way overbudget as a Master Minor.

>

> Dark Defiance seems like a very, very good effect. It is a big shame that Soul Comprehension was not touched, though.

>

> Fear of Death seems like a sleeper hit for Terror builds.

>

> Removing the chance to critically strike for Spiteful Spirit and Weakening Shroud seems very painful. I have not read the entire list of notes, though, and I think that these passive damage sources being unable to crit may be a gamewide change.

 

the spectral ring icd doesn't strip more stab. it strips 1 stack every 1.5s if they keep running through it. so long as they have 1 stack of stab, they can run through the whole ring. 2 stacks of stab or resistance and they can ignore it completely. the old wall had no icd, so you could kite melee classes back and forth through it to strip stab/keep them off of you; that's dead now. and if you get blinded when they're passing through the wall, the icd still triggers and they walk through it for free.

 

last gasp was the saving grace of the class, losing it takes reaper out of the meta completely. you can run DM for sustain, but then you just lose slower as there's no health recovery aspect to it and you lose a ton of potential damage.

 

curses/sr/scourge terrormancer builds have 0 sustain as well. even with parasitic contagion you just get trained into the ground too quickly for it to be viable. one stunlock and you're dead

 

ele, chrono, and engi kept their passive damage traits, and actually had them improved. there's no ICD on them and they hit harder than before. necro received no compensation for the sustain or damage losses =/

[KrHome.1920]

For anyone who didn't notice:

The Soul Barbs symbol is the perfect indicator for opponents to see the status of our shroud cooldown as it lasts exactly 10 seconds after leaving shroud. Great update for easy reaper ganking. Thank you ANet!

 

Gandmaster traits:

- Blighter's Boon: underpowered and clunky shroud

- Deathly Chill: useless

- Onslaught: zero sustain

 

I am done with this game for now. 6 years of endless balancing frustration is more than enough. At least my girlfriend is pretty happy - more time for us.

 

/end of story

[Eagelseye.6312]

Please share the best build now for Raids and Fractals

[EremiteAngel.9765]

From a WvW solo roaming perspective, I finally had time to try out some of the changes.

 

Traits wise, there has not been much to change from my current preferred build of spite/curses/blood.

I do wish they would buff or change Barbed Precision though after removing the ability to crit from some of the traits. 33% chance to inflict bleed on crit + bleed duration increase had always felt lacklustre to me though I understand it is a minor trait.

 

Utilities wise, the loss of spectral walk generating LF when hit doesn't affect much as my current build does not have much issues with LF generation. The condi removal on the skill active though does allow me some peace of mind to drop plague signet for spectral ring/CPC.

I dislike that the protection boon applied by Spectral Ring still requires us to cross it, but I guess it makes for better placement required. The internal ICD also made me sigh as it gives foes 4 ways to get out of the ring which wasn't the case when it was a wall and isn't the case for many other classes's similar ring/wall skills.

But overall I think the ring still has it uses when combined with spectral grasp against mobile foes like thieves and mesmers.

 

I am keen though to try out a Death Magic Death Nova build for zerging which seems real fun with more AOE spam.

[DirtyDan.4759]

> @"Scarran.9845" said:

> These are awful changes but I do love the amount of juggling they have done in the notes to try and hide the fact that they just nerf'd the spectral line. As it stands we lost might gain from gluttony reducing our damage, we lost protection, stun break and increased life force gain when we hit 50% health from last gasp thus reducing our survivability.

>

> They then increased our shroud skills recharge rate by taking the 20% we now have and making it 15%. The added heal bonus for vital persistence is pretty much useless outwith of scourge, as the last time I played reaper/core we cannot be healed whilst in shroud, so its counter intuitive to the class design. Spectral Walk change is that obscure im not sure if it still provides swiftness and recall with the addition of a condi cleanse or it just cleanses conditions now. Im hoping that it is in addition because if its not the least mobile class just got even worse and I haven't even got into the fact they done all that rework on traits yet left foot in the grave untouched.

>

> I have zero clue why they keep picking things that do not need changed as the soul reaping trait line is one of the strongest for Necro and would not have been my choice of trait lines to get an overhaul.

 

 

I had to scroll way too far to find the first person who actually realizes the severe nerfs behind this patch. I was using (double) enhanced spectral armor and spectral grasp for strong survival and pull+cleave. Now we have only 1 short armor with 40 second cooldown and spectral grasp with 35. Why remove the -20% cd reduction trait, apply it to 3 skills but leave 2 untouched??