Necro Balance notes

Life Siphon: Reduced the casting time from 3 seconds to 1.75 seconds. This skill will now cancel if the necromancer faces away from their target.

Life Slash: The damage of this skill has been increased by 35% in PvE only.

Soul Spiral: The damage of this skill has been increased by 50% in PvE only.

Death Spiral: This skill now deals increased damage to targets above 50% health, with the increase being 50% in PvE and 10% in PvP and WvW.

Shade Skills: Fixed a bug that prevented these skills from working if the player became airborne just after using them.

Well Skills: These skills now use a different cast animation when underwater.

Putrid Curse: This skill no longer corrupts a boon into a condition.

Feast of Corruption: This skill no longer automatically inflicts torment. It now corrupts boons before gaining life force and inflicting torment based upon the number of conditions on the necromancer's target. The number of boons corrupted is 2 in PvP and 3 in PvE and WvW.

Sand Flare: This skill can now be used underwater.

Summon Flesh Golem: This skill can now be used underwater.

Spectral Walk: The effect icon for this skill has been changed to match up with the skill icon.

Spectral Recall: Added a 0.5-second cooldown before this skill can be used after using Spectral Walk.

Epidemic: Increased the travel speed of epidemic projectiles by 33%. This skill now reduces the duration of conditions it copies by 50%.

Corrupt Boon: This skill now has two charges with a 0.5-second cooldown between uses. Each charge takes 18 seconds to recover.

Desert Shroud: The effects for this skill have been changed to better differentiate it from other scourge profession skills.

Siphoned Power: Increased the might granted by this trait from 2 stacks to 3 stacks.

Dhuumfire: This trait now has a cooldown when used in conjunction with the scourge specialization. This cooldown is set at 5 seconds in PvP and WvW and 3 seconds in PvE.

Blood as Sand: This trait has been split and has had its damage reduction reduced from 5% per shade to 3% per shade in PvP and WvW.

Unending Corruption: Fixed a bug that prevented this trait from corrupting a boon on downed enemies.

Basically, Reaper got a few buffs and Scourge got a massive debuff with Dhuumfire's CD.

Under water buffs; I sense more UW content coming.

Hmmm...

Invulnerability effects will now stop conditions from applying damage

As a power reaper, it's only good things for me yay!

Mostly for pve though :anguished:

As a power scourge, this has no effect on my build good or bad. The siphoned power buff sounds like it would be nice if I wasn't already at 25 stacks of might already.

Necromancer now officially on the bench (sorry not the benchmark) again. Golem underwater at last. Change on scepter confirm mesmer in it's PvE tank role. Estimated power reaper DPS: still under 30k.

I am SO glad I play reaper for the enjoyment and not a DPS benchmark lol

I play power far more often than condi, anyway, but I am disappointed in MH dagger's update. More damage scaling on the AA was on my wish list.

Epidemic and Scourge were clear nerfs but at least they were not completely broken.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Estimated power reaper DPS: still under 30k.i dunno man

i gave it a quick go and hit 29k with gs camp

someone doing the actual thing with the axe and stuff should probably hit 30k

• Life Siphon: Reduced the casting time from 3 seconds to 1.75 seconds. This skill will now cancel if the necromancer faces away from their target.
• Corrupt Boon: This skill now has two charges with a 0.5-second cooldown between uses. Each charge takes 18 seconds to recover.

Party time!

Tell me what you want, but D/Wh + A/F has become the most flexible power reaper setup. Axe2/Dagger2 spam all day!

Please check my math, here.

1st Epi = 50% condi duration.Bounced Epi = 50% condi duration

0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 so Epidemic dps was effectively nerfed by 75%.

@Dadnir.5038 said:Necromancer now officially on the bench (sorry not the benchmark) again. Golem underwater at last. Change on scepter confirm mesmer in it's PvE tank role. Estimated power reaper DPS: still under 30k.

can agree with this.and if its not on the bench its that one player thats just begging coach to put him in.

Although because i play power this has little effect on me for once reaper got a slight change for the better even if its change is not overall going to push it to be a meta thing.

@Lahmia.2193 said:As a power reaper, it's only good things for me yay!

As someone who mainly plays power-reaper, these patch-notes are a blessing.Now, I only hope that Anet doesn´t give him too much love, I don´t want reaper to get nerfed.

@Aktium.9506 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Estimated power reaper DPS: still under 30k.i dunno man

dunno man, show me that 29k dps.i get 26k with raid-buffs and ol' axe-gs-rotation.with a slightly different rotation below 50%, i get 500dps extra (weaving in soul spiral after using gs4+5 in between gravedigger spam).

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Aktium.9506 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Estimated power reaper DPS: still under 30k.i dunno man

Death spiral damage buff apply above 50% thought. It's there that one need to focus on rotation for extra damage. Below 50% I guess nothing should be changed from the previous rotation. (Still don't think that the increase will pass through the 30k mark. But I welcome any video proving me wrong)

@"Aetatis.5418" said:dunno man, show me that 29k dps.i get 26k with raid-buffs and ol' axe-gs-rotation.with a slightly different rotation below 50%, i get 500dps extra (weaving in soul spiral after using gs4+5 in between gravedigger spam).

So, basically ignore axe above 50%, due to the death spiral/shroud buff, and ignore axe below 50%, due to gravedigger?

@Astralporing.1957 said:So, basically ignore axe above 50%, due to the death spiral/shroud buff, and ignore axe below 50%, due to gravedigger?

But.... axe is one of my fav weapons WE WANT DPS NO AXE 4 U i guess this means we need more axe buffs :# [sarcastic laughter]

Probably too soon to ask but with this patch, but which is better dps now, Condi or Power reaper?

@KrHome.1920 said:

• Life Siphon: Reduced the casting time from 3 seconds to 1.75 seconds. This skill will now cancel if the necromancer faces away from their target.
• Corrupt Boon: This skill now has two charges with a 0.5-second cooldown between uses. Each charge takes 18 seconds to recover.

Party time!

Tell me what you want, but D/Wh + A/F has become the most flexible power reaper setup. Axe2/Dagger2 spam all day!

Dagger MH still sux. 2/3 skills useless (autoattacks and skill 3)And focus 4 also useless...

I wouldn't use either. 75% (really more than 75%) nerf to epidemic kills not just necromancer but every other condition user. Power brings sub support damage with no support.

@Anchoku.8142 said:Please check my math, here.

1st Epi = 50% condi duration.Bounced Epi = 50% condi duration

0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 so Epidemic dps was effectively nerfed by 75%.

So basically, it is better if two necros use both their Epis on boss to clear the adds fast than to epi bounce.

@ methuselah: yes. I wonder if this will make grieving stats obsolete as vipers will be required for condi duration for any class, not just necro.The only benefit axe has now is it's 600 range, otherwise dagger (but that limits your playstyle options to only melee).

When i read the patchnotes, my first thought was to just delete my beloved necro because it's simply not competitive in the damage dept (raids).

@Nimon.7840 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:

• Life Siphon: Reduced the casting time from 3 seconds to 1.75 seconds. This skill will now cancel if the necromancer faces away from their target.
• Corrupt Boon: This skill now has two charges with a 0.5-second cooldown between uses. Each charge takes 18 seconds to recover.

Party time!

Tell me what you want, but D/Wh + A/F has become the most flexible power reaper setup. Axe2/Dagger2 spam all day!

And to think Ray of Judgement got a revamp, despite the old version being mechanically identical to Reaper's Touch. They really should have done both.