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The Necro Problem


ZDragon.3046

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In Recent updatesAs of the last patch we saw a game wide nerf to damage (the necromancer was not exempt from this) how ever the changes that came with the patch no doubt pushed us back from the insta kill meta and closer to a bunker meta not as bad as the HoT bunker meta but still some what close.Lets get one thing correct here. All bunker builds are strong right now not just the necromancer. Core necromancer just more or less happens to be one of the strongest ones because core was already geared into being really tough evne by post patch standards but could still be eaten by anything that gave it the stink eye.

Now as most people have noticed necromancers have begun stacking defenses to well not die because getting killed sucks. While i wont say here what the strongest version of the build is because there are at least 2 or 3 variants of it based on personal taste all of them work fairly well. Some stronger than others also depending on the skill of the player.Its obvious that the meta has always been geared to "Focus the necromancer first" and as of this patch its the first ive seen where that strategy totally fails. This how ever is not a bad thing because there should not be a standard of always focus the necromancer first. There should be situations where that strategy fails to work from time to time. "But this is more than that!"

Necromancer has become exceptionally resilient due the lower damage meta and stacking defenses which is not surprising people predicted it "could" happen. Obviously people are playing flavor of the week / month / patch which is fine nothing will stop players from doing this. Basically what you need to know is that it works like this.

  • Gear for durability aka vitality and some toughness
  • Build life force with utility and traits
  • It gets a bit optional with traits but lets say the most common mix is between spite and death or blood and death and in some cases a spite blood and death but realistically you dont need all of these to make it work as i said there are many variants of it and some people just go over kill because insurance is bliss. (i guess meta battle has updated lol)
  • As you take damage you either heal yourself via regeneration in blood and death magic or via signet which procs when the necromancer takes a hit
  • Once you are healed you may optionally drop your shroud and play defensively until you need to heal again
  • Repeat

Fixing the problemThis is where the hard stuff comes in obviously it needs to be nerfed. Im not here to dispute that.How ever there are multiple ways to go about doing it. The sustain is high for a combination of 3 reasons reasons but really you only need to change 1 or 2 or so to fix the issue.

  • Death shroud blocks too much damageThis is very much the most direct cause of why its too strong. Death shroud cuts 50% of all incoming damage before applying those points of damage to the shroud resource meter. Nerfing this down to a 33% reduction or nerfing the overall total by 33% are two possible solutions here which leave all play styles and builds intact without over hindering any of the elites. As noted earlier there is a wide range of the bunker necromancer build that can produce exceptionally high sustain and not all of them use the tools people point at which means that there is likely another cause.
  • Life force generation is highLife force generation to some extent needs to be proportionally high to the meta. However the hard part to balance is that skills are designed in mind with the idea that things are falling dead around the necromancer for example in wvw deaths happen all the time and free life force is exceptionally high in mass fights. This is also easy to notice in the FFA pvp arena where you gain freel life force from kills you had no part in. In spvp matches however life force from deaths is exceptionally low and the weapon skills alone do not generate enough life force thus necromancers needed far more resource generation options. While cuts here certainly help solve the problem with the bunker core builds it also ruins the elites hindering them considering that they generally consume more life force and dont have a ton of extra modern tools to increase their incoming life force. You combine this with the fact that taking one of them usually means losing out on afew trait resources and over nerfing this spells the end for the elite specs. Cutting back things like singet of undeath from 3% down to 2% would be a good start. Cutting back Fear of Death from 15% down to 10% or possibly more might also be a good start. As a user of Undeath for well over a year before it ever got its buff i can certainly say the main issue is not with the signet. Considering ive seen high sustain necro builds that dont use it and do just as well as the ones that do use it it means that it cannot be the main source of the issue. Again i point to the above shroud blocking too much damage.
  • Overall game dps is too lowThis is a fact. Overall damage is slightly too low and based on what anet said some damage may be coming back to cc skills and in various other ways in the future. Depending on how much damage comes back directly means over nerfing one or both above topics will have drastic impacts on the necromancer going forward and nerfing them should be handle with care. Hot fixes are ok however it should also not be a finite solution should the meta shift back into high damage again.

Necromancer's play style and design.... why nerfing the core profession too much can kill it and its elitesThe necromancers play style for anyone who has yet to figure it out is based on soaking damage not evading damage. Previously there was a very large gap between soaking damage and avoiding it. This patch closed that gap considerably possibly even overlapped it making damage soaking more optimal for a few professions or builds than damage evading.No matter what nerfs come this style and design of necro will not change so long as anet is hard set on not giving the necromancer evasive tools, more boons, blocks, mobility, stealth, etc.Necromancer will for ever be locked into soaking damage as apposed to avoiding it. Nerfing its resource thats used to do that in the wrong way or by the wrong amount single handedly ruins the Core necromancer and all of its elites as all of them are based on doing this.

For those who are fighting the bunker builds under stand that before you say "Necromancers dont even need to dodge 'x' burst or 'y' skill like everyone else" Consider the fact that they likely cannot dodge as they only have 2 dodges at any given time. In many cases you are left with no options and simply have to take the damage at face value. While every other profession directly has more options to avoid or negate it. In many cases this is not an option for the necromancer.

In 80% of situations when someone says "Necromancers dont need to do x like everyone else" its likely because they cant as those options are not openly available to them based on anets hard balancing and design choices forced on them thematically. IF other professions have to jump off a point for a moment to breath and heal its not uncommon that necro cant get far enough fast enough to do those things with its lack of mobility vs other professions who can literally leap or blink away instantly to a safe space for a breather. This is but 1 example. Its certainly not impossible to adapt the play style of other professions and get away with it form time to time though its just not something they can always do.

Nerfs are welcome but keep in mindThere are not other play styles defensively that the necromancer can take and it will need to soak hits rather than avoiding them so long as anet does not give them defensive tools. No matter what elite specialization you put on this will not change. No matter what amulet you run this will not change. No matter what weapons you put on this will not change.Thats why it needs to be addressed carefully

My personally suggestions would be to start with the shroud itself before anything

  • Tone down the damage reduction "it still needs to exist" but it could stand to drop from 50% down to 33% (which is about a 33% decrease funny how that works out) or drop the overall total stored in the bar by 33% This idea was actually suggested by another player and its probably the best and first things anet should consider doing.

Tone down some of the life force generating skills and healing where its needed

  • Signet of Undeath can be reverted down to 2% from 3% (trust me as a user of this it was always fine at 2%)
  • Fear of Death can be shaved by a solid 33% this means taking the life force gain down to 10% from 15% per proc.
  • Vampiric signet can be shaved by a bit too but considering it requires the user to take a hit to activate its passive im not sure by how much. 33% here seems over kill considering it does not passively tick like the other healing signets just 100% for free or on auto attack (even if the attacks dont hit anything)
  • Vampiric rituals can be out right shaved by 33% on its healing procs

Nerfing life force generation should be treated with care though. It probably needs to be rebalanced and reworked all together in the future by decreasing gain from deaths and some traits and increasing the gain on weapon skills considerably higher which means any LF gain attempts can be denied by evading/ blocking the necromancers telegraphed attacks.

Lich formHonestly i dont really see much of a problem with this even aside from the auto damage scaling being above a 2.0 coefficient drop that down to like a modest 1.7 as it only does raw damage and its fine.

Death magicHonestly i dont think much needs to change here "yet" if the above things change. People who call death magic broken right now need to understand that it was borderline irrelevant in the recent metas. As a personal defensive line it still needs to work as a defensive line after any sustain nerfs. Unless you like the idea of every profession in this game slapping on its support lines for personal sustain that works better than its personal defensive sustain lines. (which is dumb i really wish anet would do something about it)

Lastly 2v2 pvpThis mode is practically new and is a mini season, people need to remember that its likely not going to be something anet balances around unless it replaces conquest 5v5Much like wvw you shouldn't go into this mode expecting perfect balance in head to head fights. You should be specifically expecting exceptionally strong duo combos.IF you balance professions for 2v2 team fights things will start to fall apart in 5v5 modes or any larger scaled game type.Ideally this game was never designed for permanent 2v2 competitive and there is always going to be a broken combo in 2v2 that is mad strong because the game is not balanced for it. Of course we wont know what those combos are until after Firebrand and Necro are fixed which is also another good reason to fix them!

This is similar to the whole wvw vs pvp issue on a smaller scale.If you nerf a build or profession because it does well in one mode or game type its likely to suffer in the other game types if you hold it to the same standards of the game type you nerfed it around. Simply put you wont ever get balance for 2v2 if you balance for 5v5 and you wget balance for 5v5 if you balance for 2v2. There will always be some level of difference between how things perform in these settings and thats just a given. But if 5v5 is the standard for the main season thats what balance should mainly aim for.

There are other ways to balance 2v2 though like limiting amulets even further for that game mode is one extreme example i can think of off the top of my head.

TLDR1: Yes.. nerf the necromancers sustain no arguments there... No.. do not hard balance it for 2v2 do it for 5v5. Considering its sustain is the only problem realistically it is the main thing that should be considered with 5v5 in mind. Any additional frustration can be directed to the thing that supports it in 2v2 which is firebrand.Some people might not realize it yet but you stick the current firebrand next to anything on a bunker build and its not going to be easily killable or killable at all. This is just covered by necro taking up all the real-estate at the moment

2: Yes its ok to cut life force gain.. No its not ok to cut it so much that Reaper and Scourge cannot function as they generally have higher cost.3: I blame Joko for all of this

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Well nothing unexpected happened. When ANet released the patch note preview people on the forum were already foreseeing to much sustain for the necromancer.

As a solution ANet can also reduce the LF pool in sPvP/WvW (40% of the health pool instead of 60%), this would effectively reduce the raw sustain from all incoming LF source. From my point of view this is the "better" fix since it adapt the shroud to the new amount of damage instead of keeping it adapted to the previous amount of damage.

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@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well nothing unexpected happened. When ANet released the patch note preview people on the forum were already foreseeing to much sustain for the necromancer.

As a solution ANet can also reduce the LF pool in sPvP/WvW (40% of the health pool instead of 60%), this would effectively reduce the raw sustain from all incoming LF source. From my point of view this is the "better" fix since it adapt the shroud to the new amount of damage instead of keeping it adapted to the previous amount of damage.

Regardless i think looking at the life force pool be it how much damage its reduced before being subtracted or lowering the total amount is certainly something to consider but im not sure its something that can be split between modes when i think about it. Im not sure any profession mechanics are split across game modes when it comes down to the resource portion. I cant think of any of the examples where they have done this. If they reduce the overall amount it will likely need to be a global change which probably wont hurt pve too much to be honest most end game rotations shouldn't be effected by a change like this where you wont spend "that long" in shroud anyways if you are being optimal.

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Wait a minute. Isn't the entire necro design based around the LF pool and shroud tanking? Hasn't this been stable for the entire game (excepting Scourge, which finds innovative uses for LF, but is hated for other reasons). So, everything BUT shroud is powercreeped--making shroud grossly underperform--then the powercreep is nerfed a bit--and now the shroud (which has been stable) is "overperforming"? Bear in mind that core shroud access has already been cut by the SoS nerf, and Reaper shroud by the degeneration nerf. Perhaps the current iteration is the profession's designed intent: shroud tank plus debuffing/boon conversion. Am not sure that any fix is necessary? The class appear to fulfill its designed role. If people don't like this role, then simply walk away from the necro, or stun it: necro has zero movement skills, and little stab/stunbreaks. In sPvP: rotate around it, or get a +1 on it (hello teef!). In WvW: run away from it. Either way, if it gives chase, it gets out of position, and becomes farmable. So easy. This is as a necro main.

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Also like that lifesteal from minions/wells and the dagger 2 channel heal are both OVERPOWERED! Jeebus. I remember fighting elementalists not two months ago, getting them to 5% HP, and having them heal back to 100%--repeatedly--like a yo-yo. Damn near unkillable. That is OP! The lifesteal has crap coefficients and the channel forces you to use dagger, which has poor range and poor cleave for a power weapon set.

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@"Nerah.8235" said:Wait a minute. Isn't the entire necro design based around the LF pool and shroud tanking? Hasn't this been stable for the entire game (excepting Scourge, which finds innovative uses for LF, but is hated for other reasons). So, everything BUT shroud is powercreeped--making shroud grossly underperform--then the powercreep is nerfed a bit--and now the shroud (which has been stable) is "overperforming"? Bear in mind that core shroud access has already been cut by the SoS nerf, and Reaper shroud by the degeneration nerf. Perhaps the current iteration is the profession's designed intent: shroud tank plus debuffing/boon conversion. Am not sure that any fix is necessary? The class appear to fulfill its designed role. If people don't like this role, then simply walk away from the necro, or stun it: necro has zero movement skills, and little stab/stunbreaks. In sPvP: rotate around it, or get a +1 on it (hello teef!). In WvW: run away from it. Either way, if it gives chase, it gets out of position, and becomes farmable. So easy. This is as a necro main.

I am also a necro main So i understand not want to be famrable by 80% of the other professions and that is my entire point that if anet over nerfs this in the wrong way not only will it grossly screw up core necromancer it will also violently effect reaper and scourge because their tools generally have more cost in terms of life force as a resource.

Necro + shroud is based around taking damage yes. I was even willing to defend necro up to a certain point before the patch and to some extent i still do defend it after the fact how ever its gross seeing necros running around playing the same thing just because it stronk!Being able to defend yourself was always the hardest thing about necromancer to master and the current core builds you see completely removes that skill requirement. At the same time im not gonna defend any profession or build of any kind that can 1v2 or 3 for a long period of time especially if it goes from being non existent to being one of the most played things in 2 days.Prior to the patch i had hopes that it would have great 1v1 sustain and thats not a bad thing to have if you invest in it how ever as more people attack you (provided they are not hindered or peeled off you) your chance of survival should drop. 1v2 for a short time frame is ok 1v3 for anything more than 15-20s starts to become a bit silly. Right now necro is killable if enough people jump on without being hindered by something else but usually there is something else there to do that.

People do need to understand that when firebrand makes it totally unkillable though that its not the necros fault. Thats a firebrand issue that needs to be addressed in its own right.

My post is basically saying that it needs to be nerfed but yes it still needs to be able to properly damage soak because thats the only option it has across all its elites, weapon sets, and trait combinations. It needs a reduction but it does not need to be free to anything that looks at it with a raised brow like it was before. While base shroud does not do overpowering levels of damage it is providing too much sustain in the lower damage meta when defensive stats and traits are stacked on top of it which is totally fair for people to take frustration with. How ever because there is no single trait or skill causing this its a big boiling pot of various combinations the issue is likely to do with the shroud function itself reducing damage before subtracting it from the resource pool OR the total resource people in general.

While stunning it and leaving it is an option if thats the only option...When mesmers use distortion i dont like that the only option is to walk away.When eles used the old obsidian flesh or primordial stance + stability combos (assuming no boon corrupts) i didnt like that the only option was to walk awayThis is bluntly unfair i hate that and it shouldnt exists if walking away is almost always your only option against something thats not fair.

+1's are still viable it and it does work at the moment if there are no other distractions keeping those 2 people from stomping the necros face. But the reality at the moment even in 5v5 matches its not uncommon to have one of the 4 necromancers teammate provide some kind of distraction even if its not intentionally trying to support the necro. IF that teammate happens to be op firebrand then forget it. Firebrand is a broken pile of over performance in multiple aspects while necro is mostly over bloated just in sustain.

The SoS loss should not even matter at this point ive been playing for so long that i honestly hardly miss or feel like i need the old speed of shadows to have success on necromancer 10s as the standard cool down is more than fine.

Reapers higher up keep cost is why life force nerfs need to be kept in check. Because most of the life force resources come from necromancers core kit nerfing it too much makes reaper unviable because of the increased cost.

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I don’t really understand what some “people” want to claim.

In PvP, power necro currently has ”garbage” damage (especially core, most of its attacks are also slow and can be destroyed/reflected), low or no stability, few long cooldown break stuns, low mobility and no invulnerability. Potentially high damage resistance, condition cleaning and life steal.

It is exactly what Arenanet wanted necromancers to be. If something about the strengths of necromancers will get a nerf, I feel like it “should” at least be compensated with either a damage buff or additional stability.

No profession is as easy as necromancer to counter.

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@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:Well nothing unexpected happened. When ANet released the patch note preview people on the forum were already foreseeing to much sustain for the necromancer.

As a solution ANet can also reduce the LF pool in sPvP/WvW (40% of the health pool instead of 60%), this would effectively reduce the raw sustain from all incoming LF source. From my point of view this is the "better" fix since it adapt the shroud to the new amount of damage instead of keeping it adapted to the previous amount of damage.

Regardless i think looking at the life force pool be it how much damage its reduced before being subtracted or lowering the total amount is certainly something to consider but im not sure its something that can be split between modes when i think about it. Im not sure any profession mechanics are split across game modes when it comes down to the resource portion. I cant think of any of the examples where they have done this. If they reduce the overall amount it will likely need to be a global change which probably wont hurt pve too much to be honest most end game rotations shouldn't be effected by a change like this where you wont spend "that long" in shroud anyways if you are being optimal.

There is a trait in soul reaping that temper with the LF pool, how difficult can it be to apply a similar formula based on the gamemode?

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Got to appreciate when Anet create a patch to satisfy the many, many cries on the forum that power creep is too high, TTK too low due to roflstomp damage... only to have people after the patch complain that there are too many bunker builds, TTK is too high.

Nothing has really changed. It's just that a majority of people are now discovering the builds that a minority of people played before the patch. Necro is a fun example. Everyone has been so busy playing reapers (for the spin to win) and scourges (for the AoE), yet some core necros has always been one of the nastier foes. Prepatch I've meet several core necros that I just couldnt kill at all. It's a particular build with tons of sustain. That's on the same build I play that roflstomped scourges and had little problems to kite reapers to death. But those core necros... nope. Of course, only meet good ones like... once a month. Less probably. And that's while roaming in WvW. The area where people claim necro is the worst.

But I digress. Easier to complain now than take a couple of weeks to learn how to fight necros, I guess.

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I'm fairly certain that if Unholy Sanctuary wasn't on such a low cooldown, we wouldn't have such a rampant problem aside a bit too much of Life Force. You can do great work beating on a Necro and it's likely to always been half shroud charged anytime you reach the death blow, most of the the time spent tossing it around is just more cooldowns being taken care of.

The issue is pretty much the same with Firebrand design anyway. Over the top benefits that creates a vicious circle.

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First of all I commend you for posting this. As I have said in other similar posts, no one wants to discuss nerfs to their favorite class or espec. Just take a look at the threads on the ranger forum trying to speculate on what the trade off would be for Soulbeast and the recent thread on the same for FB. Lots of denial.

I think at this point a ground up rework on core shroud is needed. Keep the degen the same, the amount of LF the same, but everything else should be on the table.

I'm talking reworking the skills, the soul reaping line, and the damage reduction in shroud. Reduced damage reduction alone is needed with this last balance patch, but as I said it is probably better to rebuild shroud from the ground up at this point.

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@"Dawdler.8521" said:Got to appreciate when Anet create a patch to satisfy the many, many cries on the forum that power creep is too high, TTK too low due to roflstomp damage... only to have people after the patch complain that there are too many bunker builds, TTK is too high.

Nothing has really changed. It's just that a majority of people are now discovering the builds that a minority of people played before the patch. Necro is a fun example. Everyone has been so busy playing reapers (for the spin to win) and scourges (for the AoE), yet some core necros has always been one of the nastier foes. Prepatch I've meet several core necros that I just couldnt kill at all. It's a particular build with tons of sustain. That's on the same build I play that roflstomped scourges and had little problems to kite reapers to death. But those core necros... nope. Of course, only meet good ones like... once a month. Less probably. And that's while roaming in WvW. The area where people claim necro is the worst.

But I digress. Easier to complain now than take a couple of weeks to learn how to fight necros, I guess.

The funny thing is reading all the people that want to lower sustain "as it wasn't nerfed enough" - saw a few of that in the PvP forums. It's hilarious because nerfing that will end up placing us back where we were prepatch, with the exception of nerfs to cooldowns/changes to functionality. With that being said I do like fighting core necro and seeing it more tanky. I feel that in the last it was too reliant on its party members to fix the gaps in its ability to play.

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@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:First of all I commend you for posting this. As I have said in other similar posts, no one wants to discuss nerfs to their favorite class or espec. Just take a look at the threads on the ranger forum trying to speculate on what the trade off would be for Soulbeast and the recent thread on the same for FB. Lots of denial.

I think at this point a ground up rework on core shroud is needed. Keep the degen the same, the amount of LF the same, but everything else should be on the table.

I'm talking reworking the skills, the soul reaping line, and the damage reduction in shroud. Reduced damage reduction alone is needed with this last balance patch, but as I said it is probably better to rebuild shroud from the ground up at this point.

It was explained in one of the monthly ANet threads that they "can't" modify heavily the structure of the core profession (even if it seem they can do it with e-specs).The issue is that the necromancer is just simply to different from other professions and ANet use it as a garbage can for failed mechanisms. Then they overload the profession with those failed mechanism until they break something.

Let's be honest:

  • The shroud being both the best offense of the necromancer and it's main defensive mean is a balance nonsense.
  • Corruption self-applying conditions on the necromancer without the skills being even slightly strong than regular skill is also nonsense.
  • Boon corruption is infinitely stronger in sPvP/WvW than in PvE, creating a weird imbalance as soon as ANet try to make the necromancer competitive everywhere.
  • Drawing condition onto self is still a failed mechanism.
  • Life siphon is either OP or garbage, there is no middle point.
  • Life force gen from death in this context is a balance issue.
  • Making the shade mechanism an area denial way to protect oneself wasn't brilliant.
  • Barrier mechanism has been pushed before release toward it's current state and that was a big mistake, it shouldn't have been able to stack.
  • Minions are implemented so poorly that it's disgusting.
  • ... etc.

ANet's effort are commendable but at some point there is a need to admit when something is badly designed. There is a need to stop making the same mistakes over and over, to stop pushing toward directions that are obviously imbalanced (whether OP or UP). 7 years of ANet balancing by tempering coefficient instead of fixing issue led to this patch that just show ugly it is to overstack failed mechanisms on a profession to try to make it barely work.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:First of all I commend you for posting this. As I have said in other similar posts, no one wants to discuss nerfs to their favorite class or espec. Just take a look at the threads on the ranger forum trying to speculate on what the trade off would be for Soulbeast and the recent thread on the same for FB. Lots of denial.

I think at this point a ground up rework on core shroud is needed. Keep the degen the same, the amount of LF the same, but everything else should be on the table.

I'm talking reworking the skills, the soul reaping line, and the damage reduction in shroud. Reduced damage reduction alone is needed with this last balance patch, but as I said it is probably better to rebuild shroud from the ground up at this point.

It was explained in one of the monthly ANet threads that they "can't" modify heavily the structure of the core profession (even if it seem they can do it with e-specs).The issue is that the necromancer is just simply to different from other professions and ANet use it as a garbage can for failed mechanisms. Then they overload the profession with those failed mechanism until they break something.

Let's be honest:
  • The shroud being both the best offense of the necromancer and it's main defensive mean is a balance nonsense.
  • Corruption self-applying conditions on the necromancer without the skills being even slightly strong than regular skill is also nonsense.
  • Boon corruption is infinitely stronger in sPvP/WvW than in PvE, creating a weird imbalance as soon as ANet try to make the necromancer competitive everywhere.
  • Drawing condition onto self is still a failed mechanism.
  • Life siphon is either OP or garbage, there is no middle point.
  • Life force gen from death in this context is a balance issue.
  • Making the shade mechanism an area denial way to protect oneself wasn't brilliant.
  • Barrier mechanism has been pushed before release toward it's current state and that was a big mistake, it shouldn't have been able to stack.
  • Minions are implemented so poorly that it's disgusting.
  • ... etc.

ANet's effort are commendable but at some point there is a need to admit when something is badly designed. There is a need to stop making the same mistakes over and over, to stop pushing toward directions that are obviously imbalanced (whether OP or UP). 7 years of ANet balancing by tempering coefficient instead of fixing issue led to this patch that just show ugly it is to overstack failed mechanisms on a profession to try to make it barely work.

Nah. If things like Tactics can get reworked, then so too can the broken parts of other core specs. But as I said, at minimum in competitive okay the damage reduction in shroud should be less, like 30% not 50%.

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I don't think "just change the damage reduction" is as easy as people think it is. I mean it's been almost 8 years and it's still here. If it was that easy then it would have been changed long ago since it's one of the huge points of contention of necro balance.

From what I understand programmatically shroud is a nightmare and changes to it are difficult to make without breaking other things.

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@"Lan Deathrider.5910" said:Nah. If things like Tactics can get reworked, then so too can the broken parts of other core specs.

There is a difference between "reworking" tactic and reworking the shroud. The tactic rework is akin to the death magic rework with the introduction of death carapace. Reworking the shroud would be equivalent to reworking the adrenaline mechanism (which in itself is probably easier to rework than the shroud since it only pack burst damage while the shroud pack damage, defense and a great part of the support of the necromancer).

But as I said, at minimum in competitive okay the damage reduction in shroud should be less, like 30% not 50%.

That's why I personnally suggest to reduce the LF pool by 1/3rd in competitive. It would basically do what you want. In fact, what you suggest put the base shroud eHP to 21210 instead of the current 26500. While what I suggest put it at 17675 eHP.

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I never imagined, that someday people would serious call core necro OP xD.i think the only problem here is the community that cries for nerfes everytime they need more then 1 sec to kill something with low effort.

a good game is based around mechanics, use your mechanics to outplay enemies mechanics. necromancer is one of best balanced profession in game since it has some ways to counter its opponents by booncorrupt and other stuff , while being hard countered by other classes mechanics (by cc, mobility or range).

necromancers are the only profession that have hard trade offs on every spec, reaper are slow and melee but with good cc and dmg, scourge has to decide to use its class mechanic as offense on range or defense on melee. core has good sustain and booncorrupt, but low dmg and anti cc.

when necromancer defense was trash no one discussed over increasing life force on necro. and now you want to decrease it where life force after YEARS in not OP but just doing what was planned from the beginning( to be a defense tool)...

people are always claiming anet destroyed the game with their balancing. i am very sure its the community always crying that destroyed the game years ago.

maybe anet learned enough in that time to ignore those topics like this one. instead of listening to people that are constantly stability spamming vs booncorrupt and wondering why they got feared or perma aa into spectral armor while wondering necro got lifeforce from that instead of just kiting and short waiting until it runs out xD.

remember the days when people tried to outplay their opponents instead of being forum warriors arguing for nerfes all day. just remember these wonderful days :3

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Don't forget that nerfing necro defense will impact full offensive necro. Without all those defense stacks, its sustain is not that great.For example, LF on death is OP on zerg fight, but in solo fight, it is useless.

IMO, underlying problem is condi stats are now too powerful compared to power, considering you can grab one defensive attribute without any loss in DPS. Some builds can even have near top DPS with 2 defensive attributes.If this is intended, then condi might need a nerf.

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@Zero.3871 said:I never imagined, that someday people would serious call core necro OP xD.i think the only problem here is the community that cries for nerfes everytime they need more then 1 sec to kill something with low effort.

a good game is based around mechanics, use your mechanics to outplay enemies mechanics. necromancer is one of best balanced profession in game since it has some ways to counter its opponents by booncorrupt and other stuff , while being hard countered by other classes mechanics (by cc, mobility or range).

necromancers are the only profession that have hard trade offs on every spec, reaper are slow and melee but with good cc and dmg, scourge has to decide to use its class mechanic as offense on range or defense on melee. core has good sustain and booncorrupt, but low dmg and anti cc.

when necromancer defense was trash no one discussed over increasing life force on necro. and now you want to decrease it where life force after YEARS in not OP but just doing what was planned from the beginning( to be a defense tool)...

people are always claiming anet destroyed the game with their balancing. i am very sure its the community always crying that destroyed the game years ago.

maybe anet learned enough in that time to ignore those topics like this one. instead of listening to people that are constantly stability spamming vs booncorrupt and wondering why they got feared or perma aa into spectral armor while wondering necro got lifeforce from that instead of just kiting and short waiting until it runs out xD.

remember the days when people tried to outplay their opponents instead of being forum warriors arguing for nerfes all day. just remember these wonderful days :3

You and me both really i mean offensively its certainly not opBut the defense is a tad bit high and without a doubt anet is gonna nerf it to some extent im trusting cal not to go over kill on it though.

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@"Sigmoid.7082" said:I don't think "just change the damage reduction" is as easy as people think it is. I mean it's been almost 8 years and it's still here. If it was that easy then it would have been changed long ago since it's one of the huge points of contention of necro balance.

From what I understand programmatically shroud is a nightmare and changes to it are difficult to make without breaking other things.

You might be right it might be buried deep down in the mess of code that none of them want to mess with out of fear of perma breaking several other things. But hey it is what it is right.

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@Shao.7236 said:I'm fairly certain that if Unholy Sanctuary wasn't on such a low cooldown, we wouldn't have such a rampant problem aside a bit too much of Life Force. You can do great work beating on a Necro and it's likely to always been half shroud charged anytime you reach the death blow, most of the the time spent tossing it around is just more cooldowns being taken care of.

The issue is pretty much the same with Firebrand design anyway. Over the top benefits that creates a vicious circle.

hmmmm i dont know about that reallyIn alot of cases some necros dont even get close enough to death to really need to depend on it to proc. Its not really the sames endure pain as you have alot more control on not allowing players to pop its activation also. Im not sure its so easy to say just increasing the cooldown would change much.But it prob should be increased just to fit the standards of other save me on fatal damage traits.

That said heavy condition stacking is very good against the build as heavy conditions can burn the shroud down faster than physical strikes so long as there are other conditions to cover shrouded removal. IVe seen burn weavers and some condi revs slay those bunker necro builds with ease just because of the strength in their condi burst.

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@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:Well nothing unexpected happened. When ANet released the patch note preview people on the forum were already foreseeing to much sustain for the necromancer.

As a solution ANet can also reduce the LF pool in sPvP/WvW (40% of the health pool instead of 60%), this would effectively reduce the raw sustain from all incoming LF source. From my point of view this is the "better" fix since it adapt the shroud to the new amount of damage instead of keeping it adapted to the previous amount of damage.

Regardless i think looking at the life force pool be it how much damage its reduced before being subtracted or lowering the total amount is certainly something to consider but im not sure its something that can be split between modes when i think about it. Im not sure any profession mechanics are split across game modes when it comes down to the resource portion. I cant think of any of the examples where they have done this. If they reduce the overall amount it will likely need to be a global change which probably wont hurt pve too much to be honest most end game rotations shouldn't be effected by a change like this where you wont spend "that long" in shroud anyways if you are being optimal.

There is a trait in soul reaping that temper with the LF pool, how difficult can it be to apply a similar formula based on the gamemode?

not sure would have to ask cal and the skills team on that one. Seems easy on paper might not be though.

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