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New Death Magic rework upcoming! (10/1 balance notes)


nikelaus.9745

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@Anchoku.8142 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:Uhhh, guys? Each stack only lasts 10 seconds (aside from Flesh of the master). How the
hell
do they think we're ever going to hit 30 on anything resembling a regular basis? I don't even think it's possible if you're not using Corrupter's Fervor.

Well my guess would be that hitting multiple targets helps stacking.

That was my thought as well. WvW condi-bombing is one way to build a full stack quickly. Another is against PvE bosses that allow more time to develop a stack.

Unless I misunderstood the preview notes, the purpose of the change is to make Necro easier to bag at the start of an engagement, increase the value of disengaging from Necro to reset the fight, and place more emphasis on having other professions support and escort.

Unfortunately, I feel like the changes will nerf Necro more
outside
of WvW zerging than it will
in
a zerg.

It will because for one blood magic does the job just as if not more effectively and provides more utility in other modes that are not wvw when more sustain is needed.Secondly players have found out that offensive pressure provides more sustain in pvp than trying to invest in stats that would provide sustain like toughness. People are more likely to disengage from you as a necro if you pressure them or limit their options of attack through offensive abilities.

So yo give up offensive power for sub par / weaker / potentially weaker defensive power at early engage for slightly and i mean slightly higher potential raw toughness makes no sense.

Anet had 7 or 6 years worth of ideas here on the forums to consider while doing this rework and they took absolutely none of it into account. Its just out right disrespectful really. Our ideas will end up on another profession as they often do.See necro focus 4 ideas ending up on guardian focus 4 when guardians were not asking for a re work to the skill. (just as an example)

About the only 2 traits that are going to be considerably better than they were before are

Deathly StrengthNot because of the potential 300 power either. IF you run a toughness build at the moment you can get 300 if not more than 300 bonus power while in shroud. ITs just the fact that you will be able to maintaine it in or out of shroud now and you dont need toughness as you upfront stat to get that bonus.

Death NovaWith the 60% damage increase assuming that the strike damage is not still BUGGED and that it will actually strike a foe. This bug has been around for a long time and i cant recall them ever fixing it. How sad it would be to see them buff the strike damage of this trait by 60% when it does not even apply the hit in the game....

Pretty good job so far.

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:how the hell are we supposed to maintain 30 stacks of deaths carapace?

A lot of class experts here, of which I am not one. But, insofar as WvW is concerned, I expect you'll have some choices to make in the grandmaster Scourge and/or Soul Reaping trait lines, whether Dhumfire for burning for or Demonic Lore for torment=burning.

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Maintaining 30 stacks of carapace should be really, really easy: it is what, 1 stack per condi applied (assuming corrupter's fervor)? I can hit 25 stacks of vuln in a few (i.e. 2-3) seconds (ignores any other conditions that would also be applied, such as chill, bleed, weakness, cripple, and poison). I can hit 30 stacks of condis very quickly on both power and condi builds. Maintaining at least 25 carapace over time should be doable, provided you have some enemies or ambient creatures around. Since I use a lot of non-meta junk already, including the current Death Magic traitline, I will experiment and see what the changes do when they go live. I should be able to get about 4200 toughness at full carapace stacks on my main build. With pulsing protection, that should make me pretty resilient?

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@Nerah.8235 said:Maintaining 30 stacks of carapace should be really, really easy: it is what, 1 stack per condi applied (assuming corrupter's fervor)? I can hit 25 stacks of vuln in a few (i.e. 2-3) seconds (ignores any other conditions that would also be applied, such as chill, bleed, weakness, cripple, and poison). I can hit 30 stacks of condis very quickly on both power and condi builds. Maintaining at least 25 carapace over time should be doable, provided you have some enemies or ambient creatures around. Since I use a lot of non-meta junk already, including the current Death Magic traitline, I will experiment and see what the changes do when they go live. I should be able to get about 4200 toughness at full carapace stacks on my main build. With pulsing protection, that should make me pretty resilient?

Getting stacks likely wont be the problem depending on what game mode you are looking at.I think the bigger gripe people have with this rework is the loss vs the gain when it comes to use it... its simply not balanced enough because it solved 0 problems people have pointed out or suggested to anet over the past 6 years. They left traits in the line that should have been removed or totally reworked all together and they didnt even bother touching some traits like Unholy Sant. Which would have been key for power builds but its going to remain at its weak iteration.

In pve of course you can get 25+ easily on a condi build.... not sure why a power build would use this though as most power builds are actually not that hot at applying condition (considering reaper at the moment) you get some vuln and some chill that comes it burst its not constant application. Considering you have to give up your damage line or soul reaping to take death magic you get a bit limited even more with condition application with power builds. Give up spite and you lost some vuln application access, give up soul reaping and you also lost vuln application access if you were opting for unyielding blast to trigger getting stacks. You also lost critical damage and straight up damage modifier.

In pvp maintaining 25+ stacks may actually be a challenge as you can be cc'ed / locked down where you cannot attack and evaded etc which slows your stacking process. Now dont get me wrong im not saying you wont ever hit 25+ stacks in-fact you might do it often based on your build. With power builds... probably not with condi builds sure. Then we need to once again look at what you are giving up for it. I think this is the major problem. In almost every case the losses being traded for this potential death magic are simply not balanced.

4200 toughness would be impressive but it really depends on what game mode you are looking at.

In wvw zergs were you are prone to taking alot of small hits vs big hits its probably gonna fare really well.In pvp it will still be trash. Burst meta classes will still chew through 3k or 4k toughness and eat you alive while you deal less damage than normal and if they have any ounce of defensive sustain themselves you wont be able to kill them due to giving up offensive pressure for slightly better defense especially on power builds.In Pve i dont see the point in running this... i mean in open world it hardly matters because its open world. In fractals and raids i dont think its going to be usable outside of very very few niche situations. I mean you need to be good with your static to even suggest letting you try something crazy kind of niche.

Overall its just a disappointment but we can wait and see how it really turns out. I doubt ill use this after testing it next week just for the sake of peeking at it. Maybe just maybe we will all be incorrect about how floppy this idea is but i have my doubts at this point.

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@Nimon.7840 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:This is underwhelming, regardless if it's good or not. It's pretty hard to get excited about effects that stack a passive damage mitigation stat.

On that note, the amount and durations are poorly thought out ... Even at max stacks, you only get 600 toughness and it's on the order of 10 seconds. That's pretty MEH if you ask me.

Who are you and what did you do to the obtena I know? Not defending anet choices :smiley:

Just kidding.

I'm also not that hyped about the changes. Some are good, but most of them feel like someone didn't really think about the changes or didn't test them.The core problem is, that I think they only test stuff in open world pve. Where basically anything works.I do have something in mind for solo roaming and maybe gonna test it in pvp as well, but yeah...

To be fair, I don't think ANYTHING they could have done would have made a passive damage mitigation mechanic interesting. Even if it gave 2000 toughness over 30 seconds ... it would STILL be boring . Powerful? Sure ...

I think what is really being shown here is that we really just don't get much to do in this class, which is sad because shroud should be that thing. It's not as bad as Warrior, but it's no Engineer either. There is a fundamental issue with it ... and Anet has not brought themselves to the point of doing anything about it. With certain choices, it still functions reasonably, but it drops off significant outside of those choices.

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:how the hell are we supposed to maintain 30 stacks of deaths carapace?

Drop red circles on a lot of people or AA a dumb AI?

Don't forget to flash shroud for 100 toughness, either.

Should I take DM and risk getting ganked right out of the gate or... not? Do I take SR? Hmmmm... Start with low LF and toughness hoping for more of the first or start with low LF and toughness hoping for more of the second... It feels like a loophole is closing around my neck.

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@"Nimon.7840" said:I think the main idea of the new deathmagic is, that you are holding up defenses in shroud, so you have benefits, when you drop out

Nope, the main idea is one idea that ANet try desperatly to force onto the necromancer since launch: Attrition. With this "rework" ANet aim to have the necromancer becoming gradually tougher as the fight goes on, making it harder to kill. It counter intuitive for players since we know that, in this game, having the ability to nullify damage over a short time lapse is superior to damage mitigation over a long time lapse. However, it still show that ANet is deadset on their profession's designs.

Yes, 7 years in the game and ANet is still trying to fit the square piece into a round hole.

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I'd be ok with these changes if there was some way to cash out the stacks for damage/defense/utility, something more like tactics warrior's new Soldier's Focus. EG you build it up and then spend it to gain a bigger effect, rather than slow build into nothing fancy. Basically it's like a sort of adrenaline that leads to a burst like warrior.

I would have gone with grandmasters as the focus:

Death Nova: Fine as is, but also add-When Shroud 5 finishes (the last pulse for core, on hit for Reaper, last pulse for Desert Shroud, on hit for Harbinger Shroud); if you have 20 or more stacks of Death's Carapace, consume them to cast Poison Nova on every enemy struck, max 5 targets.
Take this trait for huge AOE pressure when you've built up your stacks.

Corrupter's Fervor: Scrap the protection, you're already gaining toughness with death magic and it's a bit redundant. This one is more core shroud focused but still works with the other Shroud forms. The snow balling trait that specializes in boon corruption and helps you regain stacks with boosted attack speed.Gain 1 stack per condition inflicted (this part is fine). Striking an enemy with Shroud 2 casts Lesser Corrupt Boon on them (1 boon corrupted, poison yourself for 3 seconds) if you have at least 20 stacks of Death's Carapace. If you have 30 stacks of Death's Carapace, using Shroud 2-2 casts Corrupt Boon (the full one) and grants you quickness and resistance (since you're using corruption utilities you are poisoning yourself to refund death's carapace stacks), but consumes all stacks.

Unholy Sanctuary: Why is this unchanged? This trait is a joke in the majority of scenarios, the regen is minimal and the auto shroud isnt even going to save you probably because if you're about to die, you're probably low on life force (outside of pve or something weird). Lets rework this-Renegerate health for every 10 stacks of Death's Carapace, reduce the regen to half current. Always active whether in or out of shroud.Whenever you enter shroud, consume all stacks of Death's Carapace to gain 100% Damage Reduction for 1 second per 10 stacks of Death's Carapace (max 3 seconds), and absorb 20% of the damage allies take for 3 seconds (flat). Ward your allies and yourself from death.

Or something with this kind of design. Build up death's carapace and spend it for powerful effects.

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So, the only good thing I can possibly see coming from the Death Magic rework is that a minion bomber build might actually be an option. With Death Nova scaling on player stats instead of minion stats, we should be able to get some pretty hefty explosions. Especially since it seems they are making the direct damage portion apply to sacrificed/self destructing minions. Bone Minions could actually put out some solid damage.

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@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:So, the only good thing I can possibly see coming from the Death Magic rework is that a minion bomber build might actually be an option. With Death Nova scaling on player stats instead of minion stats, we should be able to get some pretty hefty explosions. Especially since it seems they are making the direct damage portion apply to sacrificed/self destructing minions. Bone Minions could actually put out some solid damage.

To see in the following patch that death nova is brought in line with other traits and now deal slightly more base damage at the cost of an inability to crit?

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That's a typical ANet rework. I am not surprised. As usual it's trash.

Reasons:

Curses is a better defense traitline than the Death Magic rework just because weakness is stronger than that whole rework while the line also offers corruptions.Soul Reaping is a better defensive traitline than the Death Magic rework as it directly increases sustain while also offering damage increasements.

You don't have to play Necro for ages to recognize that.

Death Magic Reapers are and will remain laughable encounters. WvW Scourges and PvE Core Necros will have some use for that traitline but they don't need it anyway. Protection is offered by the zerg. That 600 toughness is only achievable but at the same time useless in a zergfight. In PvE no one needs sustain and you better go for raw damage and CC (the latter for the breakbar).

So the only relevant scenario where Death Magic could (and should!) actually improve the class would be PvP and smallscale WvW. And in both you will be dead before reaching even a stack of 10 Carapace.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:So, the only good thing I can possibly see coming from the Death Magic rework is that a minion bomber build might actually be an option. With Death Nova scaling on player stats instead of minion stats, we should be able to get some pretty hefty explosions. Especially since it seems they are making the direct damage portion apply to sacrificed/self destructing minions. Bone Minions could actually put out some solid damage.

To see in the following patch that
death nova
is brought in line with other traits and now deal slightly more base damage at the cost of an inability to crit?

Well yeah. We all know Necros can't have nice things, even if they are largely ineffective in practice.

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Irenio left this in the Profession directory's main thread:

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048Irenio >CalmonHuang.2048September 25, 2019It seems there is some need for additional clarity.

tldr; By all means, please keep constructive feedback coming! We'll review it once we're able.

The initial post was not to say "Okay, feedback is now useless", but to communicate that further feedback isn't stuff we're going to be able to review/address with this next set of changes. We'll get to reviewing feedback and addressing it when we're able to, but right now we're no longer in a state of being able to review feedback for this upcoming update.

I pointed out that Scourge, in WvW, is an important topic and, we're going to continue to keep looking at Scourge's target cap and Sand Savant in particular in the future. To get a reasonable amount of time for the posted changes QA'd and any bugs addressed or changed due to sheer functional need before the release we've had to stop adjusting things for the time being. That's simply a part of the design and implementation process.

Thanks for understanding this and keeping the discussion constructive moving forward.

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:how the hell are we supposed to maintain 30 stacks of deaths carapace?

just want to point out here that if you use corrupters fervor you get one stack of buff for every single stack of a condition applied..

so even on a reaper 25+ stacks is maintainable in pvp looking at all the vulnerability you throw around..

but also as pointed out many times already the rework doesnt solve any problems of necro and the defense buff is still supbar to the corrupt and weakness output of spite or curses

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@"DEATHsCLAW.1978" said:but also as pointed out many times already the rework doesnt solve any problems of necro and the defense buff is still supbar to the corrupt and weakness output of spite or curses

against high cleanse classes its better.

You truly think death carapace change anything to death magic?

This whole rework grant a global bonus of around 5% power damage reduction and a global loss of around 5% condi damage reduction if you manage to cap the stacks. In most case against players you won't be able to cap the stack and when you do it will mean that you face large number of foes, which make this 5% increase of power damage reduction just laughable. High cleanse classes or not the "rework" isn't significant in any way in a game where it's always better to not take damage than to tank damage.

The damage reduction offered by DM was already fine, it wasn't in any way why the traitline was despised by players. The death carapace won't change the statut quo. There will still be to many minion traits, there still won't be any active defense on the necromancer kit allowing them to nullify damage and DM will still give the necromancer little to no reason to take it.

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@"Dadnir.5038" said:High cleanse classes or not the "rework" isn't significant in any way in a game where it's always better to not take damage than to tank damage.

..., there still won't be any active defense on the necromancer kit allowing them to nullify damage ...

Thus is exactly what ive been saying. Why do people not understand that in this game where dodgeing can mitigate a potential infinite ammount of damage do people see health a some massive shield.

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