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Redpawa.4108

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Balance discussionScourge is gaining a large increase to its target cap, particularly notable in WvW where the spec is already strong.Vampiric Rituals is a fun and loved trait, it is mainly limited by the lack of elite well.Blood Bank is a unique trait but is generally under-powered, and replaces a love trait.The change to Signet of Suffering further pushes the power balance to ‘in shroud’, further simplifying gameplay.Enemy deaths are not ‘controllable’, and as such the dread trait is not controllable

Multiple very effective builds in WvW, at risk of becoming oppressive

Suggested Balance Changes

  • Shade skills: These now trigger at player and shade. Target cap at each is 3 in WvW only.

  • Vampiric Rituals is revertedFor a future patch: Introduction of Elite Well

  • Blood Bank: Replaces Unholy Matyr. Potential buffs:Additionally increases incoming barrier by 20%A percentage of all healing is converted to barrier

  • Signets of Suffering: The enhanced trait effect now applies while out of shroud.

  • Dread: Shroud skill 3 recharge instead triggers when fearing a foe, reducing recharge by 33%. This trait additionally has a 1s ICDReapers Onslaught: Instead now applies quickness for 5 seconds when entering shroud, Quickness grants ferocity, Life reap reduces the recharge of all shroud skills.

Focus of changesRemove limitations on scourge, while not greatly increasing coverage in competitive.Vampiric Rituals is a much loved and used trait, the issue regarding its balance is the lack of an elite well to take advantage of it.Solo reaper damage has been reduced, to improve team play. Full 10s shroud quickness uptime can be taken with the new Dread trait.Overall these changes should increase build variety of necromancers. Reducing ‘in shroud’ effects encourages spending more time out of shroud.

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@Redpawa.4108 said:Balance discussionScourge is gaining a large increase to its target cap, particularly notable in WvW where the spec is already strong.Vampiric Rituals is a fun and loved trait, it is mainly limited by the lack of elite well.Blood Bank is a unique trait but is generally under-powered, and replaces a love trait.The change to Signet of Suffering further pushes the power balance to ‘in shroud’, further simplifying gameplay.Enemy deaths are not ‘controllable’, and as such the dread trait is not controllable

Multiple very effective builds in WvW, at risk of becoming oppressive

Suggested Balance Changes

  • Shade skills: These now trigger at player and shade. Target cap at each is 3 in WvW only.

  • Vampiric Rituals is revertedFor a future patch: Introduction of Elite Well

  • Blood Bank: Replaces Unholy Matyr. Potential buffs:Additionally increases incoming barrier by 20%A percentage of all healing is converted to barrier

  • Signets of Suffering: The enhanced trait effect now applies while out of shroud.

  • Dread: Shroud skill 3 recharge instead triggers when fearing a foe, reducing recharge by 33%. This trait additionally has a 1s ICDReapers Onslaught: Instead now applies quickness for 5 seconds when entering shroud, Quickness grants ferocity, Life reap reduces the recharge of all shroud skills.

Focus of changesRemove limitations on scourge, while not greatly increasing coverage in competitive.Vampiric Rituals is a much loved and used trait, the issue regarding its balance is the lack of an elite well to take advantage of it.Solo reaper damage has been reduced, to improve team play. Full 10s shroud quickness uptime can be taken with the new Dread trait.Overall these changes should increase build variety of necromancers. Reducing ‘in shroud’ effects encourages spending more time out of shroud.

No don't remove unholy martyr, that's the only trait that makes the whole traitline viable for pvp modes

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Blood Bank could replace Banshee's Fail. With Banshee's Fail being incorporated into baseline Warhorn.

Blood Bank could even be buffed while being moved to Master tier given how trash it is (It's currently on par, or arguably worse than, a Minor Adept trait...)

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Reaper damage reduced even more? Completely bad idea.I think its pretty much only Soul Barbs that is keeping necromancers flashing the shroud constantly. With more shroud focused effects comming over time, I could well imagine that there eventually would be more power in staying in the shroud over flashing it.

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@Redpawa.4108 said:

  • Blood Bank: Replaces Unholy Matyr. Potential buffs:Additionally increases incoming barrier by 20%A percentage of all healing is converted to barrierUnholy martyr is currently the only useful gm trait for non-scourges. It took years before bm was pickable by any core or reaper build that did not focus on wells. And why do you want to remove a condi cleanse and LF generation trait for core and reaper for some less effective barrier trait?

  • Signets of Suffering: The enhanced trait effect now applies while out of shroud.They changed that to kill bunker core necro that exploited the passive out of shroud LF generation. Necro should definitely have some options for passive LF generation (it now has two: eternal life and signet of undeath), but the way the signet trait worked before was too strong.

After the feb patch core and reaper both had a hard time to fight encounters with good positioning as they lacked damage. The average silver division player might think both were too strong (because they tend to facetank) but the opposite was the case.

The shift of the signet trait to the master tier opens more offensive options via the spite gm traits.

I have to revert my first impression of the patch regarding dread at this point. The sustain of signet builds was lowered, but the damage potential was increased, which brings back some burst capability for core and reaper. And this results in less vulnerability to kiting.

One of the reasons why speed rune is basically a must pick for necros is the fact that the fights take too long and non speed rune reapers are super easy to kite and peel and core necros are just harmless punching bags.

  • Dread: Shroud skill 3 recharge instead triggers when fearing a foe, reducing recharge by 33%. This trait additionally has a 1s ICDI like the idea but 20% is more realistic. And why the ICD? It's not that you can spam multiple fears within one second.

    Reapers Onslaught: Instead now applies quickness for 5 seconds when entering shroud, Quickness grants ferocity, Life reap reduces the recharge of all shroud skills.No! If you remove the quickness re-application, then any boonstrip (necro, thief, mesmer, spellbreaker, sigil...) hardcounters reaper, as it immediately strips the quickness and ferocity.

Focus of changesSolo reaper damage has been reduced, to improve team play. Full 10s shroud quickness uptime can be taken with the new Dread trait.This kills build variety.

Overall these changes should increase build variety of necromancers. Reducing ‘in shroud’ effects encourages spending more time out of shroud.Necro sucks out of shroud and would need a complete rework, if you want to make it competitive to other classes.

All in all these changes would not improve necro, but create easy hardcounters (esp. to reaper) and lower the build variety.

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I like the new well changes, but that's because I never felt taking Vampiric Rituals was worth investing into BM. Now the wells are applicable across multiple builds without focusing on BM. However, Blood Bank is a joke. I'd say keep the CD changes on wells, but reinstate Vampiric Rituals, allowing for protection and life siphon and maybe even some unique interaction between the trait and wells, like how Lingering Curse has a unique interaction with scepter 3.

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Sand Savant, as I mentioned in another post (https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/109714/balance-patch-sand-savant-mistake), is useless. What benefit do you get from taking this GM trait? A slightly larger radius for a single shade WITH a longer cooldown. It hits the same number of targets as a regular, non-traited Shade!

It's ridiculous and offers no compelling reason to take it.

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@"misterman.1530" said:Sand Savant, as I mentioned in another post (https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/109714/balance-patch-sand-savant-mistake), is useless. What benefit do you get from taking this GM trait? A slightly larger radius for a single shade WITH a longer cooldown. It hits the same number of targets as a regular, non-traited Shade!

It's ridiculous and offers no compelling reason to take it.

Well if you play anything other than WvW, heal scourges have plenty of reason to take it, as it is a staple in the build.

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@Methuselah.4376 said:

@"misterman.1530" said:Sand Savant, as I mentioned in another post (
), is useless. What benefit do you get from taking this GM trait? A slightly larger radius for a single shade WITH a longer cooldown. It hits the same number of targets as a regular, non-traited Shade!

It's ridiculous and offers no compelling reason to take it.

Well if you play anything other than WvW, heal scourges have plenty of reason to take it, as it is a staple in the build.

Why? The extra radius?

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@misterman.1530 said:

@misterman.1530 said:Sand Savant, as I mentioned in another post (
), is useless. What benefit do you get from taking this GM trait? A slightly larger radius for a single shade WITH a longer cooldown. It hits the same number of targets as a regular, non-traited Shade!

It's ridiculous and offers no compelling reason to take it.

Well if you play anything other than WvW, heal scourges have plenty of reason to take it, as it is a staple in the build.

Why? The extra radius?

No, it affects up to 10 people in PvE, which is needed for squad support.

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@"misterman.1530" said:Sand Savant, as I mentioned in another post (https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/109714/balance-patch-sand-savant-mistake), is useless. What benefit do you get from taking this GM trait? A slightly larger radius for a single shade WITH a longer cooldown. It hits the same number of targets as a regular, non-traited Shade!

It's ridiculous and offers no compelling reason to take it.

If taken as a tool to deal damage you're right, if it's just in order to benefit from the full effect of the 2 minor traits without doing much work then you're wrong. Before they brought back the self shade, you had to make a choice between the benefiting from the effect of your shade skills or benefiting from the effect of the minor traits. You no longer need to make this choice. As for sand savant it give you full benefit without having to time your shades. So you could say that the trait give you some QoL (poor in term of efficiency but QoL nonetheless).

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