Balance 28/04/20

[Fueki.4753]

@Burjis.3087 said:This patch only had one message: Necros aren't supposed to rezz and we're gonna make sure they don't!

Apparently, Core Necros aren't supposed to do anything, then.

[jalmari.3906]

Another nerf every build because of one I guess, which is no surprise there.

No reason to play whatsoever.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Fueki.4753 said:

@Burjis.3087 said:This patch only had one message: Necros aren't supposed to rezz and we're gonna make sure they don't!

Apparently, Core Necros aren't supposed to do anything, then.

Well I'd say that core necromancers are supposed to take hit like PvE boss but unfortunately they don't have defiance, so it might be more accurate to say that they are supposed to take hits like PvE veteran or elite mobs.

[Anchoku.8142]

The stealthy elephant in the room is that we have seen a number of balance changes focused on PvP and WvW the past year but nothing much regarding PvE.

I thought I saw somewhere that competitive mode splits and nerfs would set up some significant PvE changes for the future. If there are major profession reworks coming, I cannot guess when or if.

Death Magic's supposed rework last year felt absolutely pointless and many aspects of Necro were made clunky. The profession used to be good at managing and applying conditions but now it feels inferior. No one says, "we need a Necro to manage conditions." Transferring conditions from allies to enemies, converting conditions to boons, consuming conditions, Fear and it's modifying traits, soft CC, self-inflicted conditions for personal and ally benefit, high potential for condi-dps, lots of combo fields; there are so many core design concepts about Necromancer that feel abandoned it is as if 2012 was the birth and death of the profession.

At least Necro has corruptions to combat rampant boon-spam.

[Infusion.7149]

I would only expect the skills that had been changed to 300 cooldown to be completely reworked.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Infusion.7149 said:I would only expect the skills that had been changed to 300 cooldown to be completely reworked.

So far, I think that's what the devs said they would do. Let's say that It's a work in progress just like allowing the necromancer's golem into underwater content have been a work in progress that lasted 6 years.

That said, I wouldn't be against unholy sanctuary life saving feature being removed totally in a rework.

[ZDragon.3046]

imo

Death Shroud: Increased the life force lost per second from 3% to 4% in PvP only.This change was kind of misplaced and i would consider it overkill in the same patch which also reduces a Life force generation tool. My main issue with this is that core now cost almost as much as reaper and reaper is considerably less effective in power and condi dps. Reaper still cost more but really does not feel like its doing more than core its also harder to sustain due to having less freedom to take more LF generating traits. It also has fewer damage skills than core has now.

Ritual of Life: Reduced the revive pulse from 4% to 1% in PvP and WvW.I can understand this change it was not really a nerf just to nerf it was more so a trait they missed when they nerfed other rez traits down to 1%. While i do think 1% is insanely low they need to reexamine down state health and standard press f to heal all together.

Fear of Death: Reduced life force gained from 15% to 7% in PvP only.Again the main thing i dislike here is that it came in the same patch that increased base shroud cost. This change should have been done before some of the other changes and at this point it seems like over nerfing. The trait already had a icd on it too.

Unholy Sanctuary: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 120 seconds in PvP only.I have nothing against this really its understandable based on other "Save me" traits.

Generally my issue is that they continue to reduce life force generating traits and utilities without increasing life force generation on weapon skills which can simply be dodged to deny the necro's life force much like how other professions have skills you often want to dodge to stop them from getting an advantage.

I doubt this will be the last of the nerfs to necromancer either which is the sad part.

[Anchoku.8142]

@"ZDragon.3046" said:imo

Death Shroud: Increased the life force lost per second from 3% to 4% in PvP only.This change was kind of misplaced and i would consider it overkill in the same patch which also reduces a Life force generation tool. My main issue with this is that core now cost almost as much as reaper and reaper is considerably less effective in power and condi dps. Reaper still cost more but really does not feel like its doing more than core its also harder to sustain due to having less freedom to take more LF generating traits. It also has fewer damage skills than core has now.

Ritual of Life: Reduced the revive pulse from 4% to 1% in PvP and WvW.I can understand this change it was not really a nerf just to nerf it was more so a trait they missed when they nerfed other rez traits down to 1%. While i do think 1% is insanely low they need to reexamine down state health and standard press f to heal all together.

Fear of Death: Reduced life force gained from 15% to 7% in PvP only.Again the main thing i dislike here is that it came in the same patch that increased base shroud cost. This change should have been done before some of the other changes and at this point it seems like over nerfing. The trait already had a icd on it too.

Unholy Sanctuary: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 120 seconds in PvP only.I have nothing against this really its understandable based on other "Save me" traits.

Generally my issue is that they continue to reduce life force generating traits and utilities without increasing life force generation on weapon skills which can simply be dodged to deny the necro's life force much like how other professions have skills you often want to dodge to stop them from getting an advantage.

I doubt this will be the last of the nerfs to necromancer either which is the sad part.

^^^Agree with all of this and thinks Arenanet probably does, too.

Part of the point of splits is recognizing there is no better solution than to hammer down and grind off bits until PvP is roughly balanced. If the end result has marred and ugly sides but sort of works, it's good enough.

Keep in mind the gold standard for PvP are the activities like Keg Brawl where there are no professions. It still surprises me Arenanet does not pull activities directly under PvP and give them reward tracks. Look at all the activities and races there are. All are PvP and/or PvClock and no one complains about balance. I do not think it is an accident there are so many competitions not strictly under PvP.

[Infusion.7149]

Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

[ZDragon.3046]

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

In pvp those skills are considerably harder to land on other players especially if you dont want to just be out right hard punished for playing without any caution (you wont get the auto chain on any one who is not a downed body) the only other skills are the 3 and 5 and the 3 can be strong or poor depending on the situation but the 5 is slow and clunky. Still If we are going to nerf passive life force generating traits then increase the amounts on key skills people already know they "should" be dodging. Make life force generation more active and less passive how ever having low active gains combined with low passive gains will lead to issues if they continue to nerf the traits.

I would say right now necro in general is riding a line having rough life force generation specifically in spvp where people are not falling over dead in large numbers or you are not hidden behind the safety of dozens of other players like you find in wvw.

Reaper in spvp is exceptionally hard to maintain i consider core power more effective personally cause its easier to gain life force through more trait options and its damage can be on par with reapers, unlike reaper its not limited to melee range to be effective and even on a pure power setup it still has more damage skills on its shroud bar than reaper has. At this point they should consider re working the trade off of reaper costing more for what was suppose to be "more damage" because the damage increase is honestly in most cases not noticeable anymore between the things i said above. Even now more people still want reaper damage lowered because "its too much."

These are just my idle thoughts though dont take them too seriously.

[ZDragon.3046]

@Anchoku.8142 said:

@"ZDragon.3046" said:imo

Death Shroud: Increased the life force lost per second from 3% to 4% in PvP only.

This change was kind of misplaced and i would consider it overkill in the same patch which also reduces a Life force generation tool. My main issue with this is that core now cost almost as much as reaper and reaper is considerably less effective in power and condi dps. Reaper still cost more but really does not feel like its doing more than core its also harder to sustain due to having less freedom to take more LF generating traits. It also has fewer damage skills than core has now.

Ritual of Life: Reduced the revive pulse from 4% to 1% in PvP and WvW.

I can understand this change it was not really a nerf just to nerf it was more so a trait they missed when they nerfed other rez traits down to 1%. While i do think 1% is insanely low they need to reexamine down state health and standard press f to heal all together.

Fear of Death: Reduced life force gained from 15% to 7% in PvP only.

Again the main thing i dislike here is that it came in the same patch that increased base shroud cost. This change should have been done before some of the other changes and at this point it seems like over nerfing. The trait already had a icd on it too.

Unholy Sanctuary: Increased cooldown from 30 seconds to 120 seconds in PvP only.

I have nothing against this really its understandable based on other "Save me" traits.

Generally my issue is that they continue to reduce life force generating traits and utilities without increasing life force generation on weapon skills which can simply be dodged to deny the necro's life force much like how other professions have skills you often want to dodge to stop them from getting an advantage.

I doubt this will be the last of the nerfs to necromancer either which is the sad part.

^^^Agree with all of this and thinks Arenanet probably does, too.

Part of the point of splits is recognizing there is no better solution than to hammer down and grind off bits until PvP is roughly balanced. If the end result has marred and ugly sides but sort of works, it's good enough.

Keep in mind the gold standard for PvP are the activities like Keg Brawl where there

are

no professions. It still surprises me Arenanet does not pull activities directly under PvP and give them reward tracks. Look at all the activities and races there are. All are PvP and/or PvClock and no one complains about balance. I do not think it is an accident there are so many competitions not strictly under PvP.

You bring up a good point about other competitive activities. Even the charr event in Grothmar where you pick a legion car and try to blow up other players has never once made me frustrated its one of the most fun things I've done along with some of the races which technically are some what competitive.Perhaps part of the issue with SPvp is also the game modes that anet has tied themselves to balance around. For a long time ive wanted things like death match and free for all or something similar like Elder scrolls online crazy king (where the capture points de-spawn and spawn around randomly), and chaos ball (holding a flag that deals more damage to the holder and friendly players around the longer they hold it while collecting points) pvp modes would be pretty neat too.

Then there is the issue of the players themselves. Some professions do give mechanics that endorse god complex or ego boosting which leads too toxic behavior. A lot of the events you called out dont have tools or mechanics to grant or endorse those things.

[Flumek.9043]

@Infusion.7149 said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

U mean the clunkiest unrealiable lottery ticket?

Id rather buy oil stocks right now than bet on greatsword hitting anything in pvp.

[Teacher.6701]

I feel like people here never got into higher rating and never saw what core necro can really do so you talk about how this is overnerf and necro is unplayable when in higher ratings (p2+) necro is probably still biggest cancer right behind condi thief.Good core necro with tanky build when played smart is almost unkillable by 2 people. Some people here talk about how necro lost SO MUCH survi with 4% life force decay. Yeee. Have fun breaking through that 50k health. Oh wait but there is unholy sanctuary so after you got that 50k health there is 1 more health bar (at least that got bigger cd now). You managed to get even that?! No you didn't because you are running for 5 seconds into wall with fear. You say cleanse it? Sorry used all my stunbreaks and cleanses on previous 5 second fears, 8 torment, poison, bleed, immob and cripple. Also used all my skills trying to chase necro after he teleported twice (wurm and spectral walk) when i have no teleport so i guess he will get away anyway. Oh wait what is he doing? He is running to me? Lucky! Oh wait he changed into lich form and now is hitting me 6k with each hit. And feared me again. And i can't even cc him since he gets stability all time.Core necro is still fking good if you play it smarter than running into point with 3+ people and standing there. The thing i agree with people here is that necro need MANY buffs to other traits so more builds can be played but that works for most other classes as well. Necro overall is in terrible state builds-wise and don't get me started on scourge that is almost unplayable and unfun right now. I guess scourge need some kind of rework in sPvP to be played again.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Walarti.2961" said:I feel like people here never got into higher rating and never saw what core necro can really do so you talk about how this is overnerf and necro is unplayable when in higher ratings (p2+) necro is probably still biggest cancer right behind condi thief.Good core necro with tanky build when played smart is almost unkillable by 2 people. Some people here talk about how necro lost SO MUCH survi with 4% life force decay. Yeee. Have fun breaking through that 50k health. Oh wait but there is unholy sanctuary so after you got that 50k health there is 1 more health bar (at least that got bigger cd now). You managed to get even that?! No you didn't because you are running for 5 seconds into wall with fear. You say cleanse it? Sorry used all my stunbreaks and cleanses on previous 5 second fears, 8 torment, poison, bleed, immob and cripple. Also used all my skills trying to chase necro after he teleported twice (wurm and spectral walk) when i have no teleport so i guess he will get away anyway. Oh wait what is he doing? He is running to me? Lucky! Oh wait he changed into lich form and now is hitting me 6k with each hit. And feared me again. And i can't even cc him since he gets stability all time.Core necro is still kitten good if you play it smarter than running into point with 3+ people and standing there. The thing i agree with people here is that necro need MANY buffs to other traits so more builds can be played but that works for most other classes as well. Necro overall is in terrible state builds-wise and don't get me started on scourge that is almost unplayable and unfun right now. I guess scourge need some kind of rework in sPvP to be played again.

You don't understand what players are saying here.

It's not that the core necromancer have been "nerfed to hard", it's that the way it's been nerfed hurt more the profession as a whole than this peculiar tanky build that sPvP players (You visibly) complain about.

To put it simply, the whole necromancer's profession is designed to function around the idea of returning in shroud every 10 seconds (be it glassy builds or tanky builds). Thus nerfing LF sources nerf all builds. The issue of the core necromancer in sPvP is it's ability to soak damage not it's ability to build life force. This ability to soak damage have been strengthen by the fact that damage are lower in sPvP than they used to be. In short, the true issue is the thiccness of the "health shield" which have not been nerfed.

Had ANet nerfed the ratio LF/health by 33% in sPvP the necromancer wouldn't have felt tankier than it was before. The glassy builds wouldn't be sturdier than before and wouldn't slowly lose their ability to deal "glassy build" damages due to their LF sources being cut down again and again. You and ANet's devs are looking at the banana on the painting and you don't see the painted monkey that's about to eat it.

The same thing happened to scourge as well as many other specializations and that's why the "nerfs" are poorly done. The worst point is that when ANet break something they don't go back and say "oups we clearly made a mistake!", they just try harder to balance their mistakes that they refuse to acknowledge. The sPvP subforum is in general an awful source of idea for nerfs. Despite that, when they want less passive procs they get less passive proc. When they want less damage they get less damage. When they want a tanky build (which is a counter to glassy build) to get out of the picture, they get the tanky build outa the picture. When there is to much aoe they get less aoe... etc. And systematically it's poorly done following ridiculous suggestion from this peculiar subforum. Scourge issue is and have always been the offensive nature of F5 and the manifest sand shade proc on F2 to F4, the changes could have been swiftly done without the useless extra that finally ended in a sheer QoL nerf. Thief is nerfed over and over again due to it being designed around bursting out of stealth, it's the bursting out of stealth that need nerf not the overall damage or whatever but, no, almost 8 years now and ANet continue on with the poor nerfs. Mesmer suffer the same fate than thief for nearly the same reasons, burst outa stealth design. Rangers have had a "pet issue" since release of the game that still haunt us, it's never been fixed... etc. It's like ANet's devs never learn, there is a limit to studborness.

Initially, at release, the necromancer wasn't designed to stay in shroud. it was designed to dance in and out of shroud, shielding and buffing himself for some time in shroud or giving it up for temporary strength by going out of shroud. Now, you just enter shroud and become superman, going out of shroud making you mediocre at best. That's why scourge would have ended up being "poor" without the "damage" loaded on it's shade skills, scourge being mainly an out of shroud spec. And that's also why loading up those these skills with damage ended up creating a cancer spec. It's stupid but what the necromancer need for balance is to change the path it has been put on, to go back to the roots, to have the shroud/shade/life force ressource act as a source of defense, utility and self buff instead sheer source of damage.

[KrHome.1920]

@Walarti.2961 said:higher ratingGood core necro with tanky build when played smart is almost unkillable by 2 peopleI am confused. Are we talking about higher ratings or about two noobs failing to burst a core necro?

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

Ritual of life nerf is ridiculous. I was thinking 4% was the lowest it should be, maybe should be 5%

[Sigmoid.7082]

@SlitheSlivier.1908 said:Ritual of life nerf is ridiculous. I was thinking 4% was the lowest it should be, maybe should be 5%

Pretty much all the others had valued this low, RoL was an outlier and was confirmed that they missed it when they nerfed the others, hence why it got changed now.

[RisenHowl.2419]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

In pvp those skills are considerably harder to land on other players especially if you dont want to just be out right hard punished for playing without any caution (you wont get the auto chain on any one who is not a downed body) the only other skills are the 3 and 5 and the 3 can be strong or poor depending on the situation but the 5 is slow and clunky. Still If we are going to nerf passive life force generating traits then increase the amounts on key skills people already know they "should" be dodging. Make life force generation more active and less passive how ever having low active gains combined with low passive gains will lead to issues if they continue to nerf the traits.

I would say right now necro in general is riding a line having rough life force generation specifically in spvp where people are not falling over dead in large numbers or you are not hidden behind the safety of dozens of other players like you find in wvw.

Reaper in spvp is exceptionally hard to maintain i consider core power more effective personally cause its easier to gain life force through more trait options and its damage can be on par with reapers, unlike reaper its not limited to melee range to be effective and even on a pure power setup it still has more damage skills on its shroud bar than reaper has. At this point they should consider re working the trade off of reaper costing more for what was suppose to be "more damage" because the damage increase is honestly in most cases not noticeable anymore between the things i said above. Even now more people still want reaper damage lowered because "its too much."

These are just my idle thoughts though dont take them too seriously.

@Flumek.9043 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

U mean the clunkiest unrealiable lottery ticket?

Id rather buy oil stocks right now than bet on greatsword hitting anything in pvp.

Using greatsword correctly is 100% a skill issue. This is a spite/curses build to boot, so no extra LF from soul reaping:

[ZDragon.3046]

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

In pvp those skills are considerably harder to land on other players especially if you dont want to just be out right hard punished for playing without any caution (you wont get the auto chain on any one who is not a downed body) the only other skills are the 3 and 5 and the 3 can be strong or poor depending on the situation but the 5 is slow and clunky. Still If we are going to nerf passive life force generating traits then increase the amounts on key skills people already know they "should" be dodging. Make life force generation more active and less passive how ever having low active gains combined with low passive gains will lead to issues if they continue to nerf the traits.

I would say right now necro in general is riding a line having rough life force generation specifically in spvp where people are not falling over dead in large numbers or you are not hidden behind the safety of dozens of other players like you find in wvw.

Reaper in spvp is exceptionally hard to maintain i consider core power more effective personally cause its easier to gain life force through more trait options and its damage can be on par with reapers, unlike reaper its not limited to melee range to be effective and even on a pure power setup it still has more damage skills on its shroud bar than reaper has. At this point they should consider re working the trade off of reaper costing more for what was suppose to be "more damage" because the damage increase is honestly in most cases not noticeable anymore between the things i said above. Even now more people still want reaper damage lowered because "its too much."

These are just my idle thoughts though dont take them too seriously.

@Flumek.9043 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

U mean the clunkiest unrealiable lottery ticket?

Id rather buy oil stocks right now than bet on greatsword hitting anything in pvp.

Using greatsword correctly is 100% a skill issue. This is a spite/curses build to boot, so no extra LF from soul reaping:

you do realize that in quite a few or the majority of these spectral grasp is acting as the majority of your life force gain.While you do land some good pulls and a few death spirals which is not hard to do (its just not consistent do the nature of the skills) the gs's life force generation is relatively minimal in most situations and it certainly does not compare to the up keep cost of reaper. As i said in my statement about the GS3 can be good or poor depending on the situation i wont say its bad but i wont say "oh its amazing" in truth its situational.

Even in your examples your life force generation is pretty poor but scales up to be much greater in the bigger fights due to the nature of spectral grasp which is a massive generator if you manage to yonk a few people in a single cast. Lets not ignore this as its basically on your bar in the whole compilation of examples in that video.

I mean i commend you because you have great combos and i thank you for sharing but it does not change what i said about necromancers weapon skills vs lf generation in general.

Again my argument is that if anet wants to continue to cut down passive sources then they might want to consider increasing the active sources a bit which i dont think is wrong to argue.

[RisenHowl.2419]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

In pvp those skills are considerably harder to land on other players especially if you dont want to just be out right hard punished for playing without any caution (you wont get the auto chain on any one who is not a downed body) the only other skills are the 3 and 5 and the 3 can be strong or poor depending on the situation but the 5 is slow and clunky. Still If we are going to nerf passive life force generating traits then increase the amounts on key skills people already know they "should" be dodging. Make life force generation more active and less passive how ever having low active gains combined with low passive gains will lead to issues if they continue to nerf the traits.

I would say right now necro in general is riding a line having rough life force generation specifically in spvp where people are not falling over dead in large numbers or you are not hidden behind the safety of dozens of other players like you find in wvw.

Reaper in spvp is exceptionally hard to maintain i consider core power more effective personally cause its easier to gain life force through more trait options and its damage can be on par with reapers, unlike reaper its not limited to melee range to be effective and even on a pure power setup it still has more damage skills on its shroud bar than reaper has. At this point they should consider re working the trade off of reaper costing more for what was suppose to be "more damage" because the damage increase is honestly in most cases not noticeable anymore between the things i said above. Even now more people still want reaper damage lowered because "its too much."

These are just my idle thoughts though dont take them too seriously.

@Flumek.9043 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

U mean the clunkiest unrealiable lottery ticket?

Id rather buy oil stocks right now than bet on greatsword hitting anything in pvp.

Using greatsword correctly is 100% a skill issue. This is a spite/curses build to boot, so no extra LF from soul reaping:

you do realize that in quite a few or the majority of these spectral grasp is acting as the majority of your life force gain.While you do land some good pulls and a few death spirals which is not hard to do (its just not consistent do the nature of the skills) the gs's life force generation is relatively minimal in most situations and it certainly does not compare to the up keep cost of reaper. As i said in my statement about the GS3 can be good or poor depending on the situation i wont say its bad but i wont say "oh its amazing" in truth its situational.

Even in your examples your life force generation is pretty poor but scales up to be much greater in the bigger fights due to the nature of spectral grasp which is a massive generator if you manage to yonk a few people in a single cast. Lets not ignore this as its basically on your bar in the whole compilation of examples in that video.

I mean i commend you because you have great combos and i thank you for sharing but it does not change what i said about necromancers weapon skills vs lf generation in general.

Again my argument is that if anet wants to continue to cut down passive sources then they might want to consider increasing the active sources a bit which i dont think is wrong to argue.

You're right, i'm using spectral grasp, walk, and ring to generate LF. Which illuminates that you don't need to rely solely on your weapon sets for it. There's plenty of traits and utilities that offer LF, you just need to learn how to use them effectively. GS3 can give more LF than any other weapon skill when used correctly (up to 36%) by pulling enemies close together in melee range so you can cleave them. Dagger MH offers similar synergy, immob with 3 and follow it up with your AA- instead of chasing people around trying to melee them or wasting that immob to land dagger 2. GS's a pretty amazing weapon set, but it's slow and requires that you know how to set up the skills for maximum impact, which is why if you're having trouble with it, it's a skill issue.

I think a bigger issue with reaper is too many people pop shroud and then stay in it until it runs out, even when they have no moves available to utilize it. You'll find that dropping shroud when it's no longer helpful is going to have a sizeable impact on your ability to use the class.

When starting out with necro, run soul reaping x/x/1 and you'll have at least 20% LF every time you want to enter shroud. The tools are there, you just need to learn how to use them.

[ZDragon.3046]

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

In pvp those skills are considerably harder to land on other players especially if you dont want to just be out right hard punished for playing without any caution (you wont get the auto chain on any one who is not a downed body) the only other skills are the 3 and 5 and the 3 can be strong or poor depending on the situation but the 5 is slow and clunky. Still If we are going to nerf passive life force generating traits then increase the amounts on key skills people already know they "should" be dodging. Make life force generation more active and less passive how ever having low active gains combined with low passive gains will lead to issues if they continue to nerf the traits.

I would say right now necro in general is riding a line having rough life force generation specifically in spvp where people are not falling over dead in large numbers or you are not hidden behind the safety of dozens of other players like you find in wvw.

Reaper in spvp is exceptionally hard to maintain i consider core power more effective personally cause its easier to gain life force through more trait options and its damage can be on par with reapers, unlike reaper its not limited to melee range to be effective and even on a pure power setup it still has more damage skills on its shroud bar than reaper has. At this point they should consider re working the trade off of reaper costing more for what was suppose to be "more damage" because the damage increase is honestly in most cases not noticeable anymore between the things i said above. Even now more people still want reaper damage lowered because "its too much."

These are just my idle thoughts though dont take them too seriously.

@Flumek.9043 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

U mean the clunkiest unrealiable lottery ticket?

Id rather buy oil stocks right now than bet on greatsword hitting anything in pvp.

Using greatsword correctly is 100% a skill issue. This is a spite/curses build to boot, so no extra LF from soul reaping:

you do realize that in quite a few or the majority of these spectral grasp is acting as the majority of your life force gain.While you do land some good pulls and a few death spirals which is not hard to do (its just not consistent do the nature of the skills) the gs's life force generation is relatively minimal in most situations and it certainly does not compare to the up keep cost of reaper. As i said in my statement about the GS3 can be good or poor depending on the situation i wont say its bad but i wont say "oh its amazing" in truth its situational.

Even in your examples your life force generation is pretty poor but scales up to be much greater in the bigger fights due to the nature of spectral grasp which is a massive generator if you manage to yonk a few people in a single cast. Lets not ignore this as its basically on your bar in the whole compilation of examples in that video.

I mean i commend you because you have great combos and i thank you for sharing but it does not change what i said about necromancers weapon skills vs lf generation in general.

Again my argument is that if anet wants to continue to cut down passive sources then they might want to consider increasing the active sources a bit which i dont think is wrong to argue.

You're right, i'm using spectral grasp, walk, and ring to generate LF. Which illuminates that you don't need to rely solely on your weapon sets for it. There's plenty of traits and utilities that offer LF, you just need to learn how to use them effectively. GS3 can give more LF than any other weapon skill when used correctly (up to 36%) by pulling enemies close together in melee range so you can cleave them. Dagger MH offers similar synergy, immob with 3 and follow it up with your AA- instead of chasing people around trying to melee them or wasting that immob to land dagger 2. GS's a pretty amazing weapon set, but it's slow and requires that you know how to set up the skills for maximum impact, which is why if you're having trouble with it, it's a skill issue.

I think a bigger issue with reaper is too many people pop shroud and then stay in it until it runs out, even when they have no moves available to utilize it. You'll find that dropping shroud when it's no longer helpful is going to have a sizeable impact on your ability to use the class.

When starting out with necro, run soul reaping x/x/1 and you'll have at least 20% LF every time you want to enter shroud. The tools are there, you just need to learn how to use them.

Grasp has always been decent in pvp for the sole purpose of building lf quickly especially at the start of a match where anet still chooses to start the necromancer with none! (why thats a thing in 2020 idk) Eternal life is nice but its not worth taking imo (ive been playing long enough to where a 20% start is not going to change much for me in most situations.)

Im actually running a blood, spite, reaper build atm with decimate defenses for extra kicks my life force gen is what i would call "ok" but weapons are not the biggest factor in how good my generation is its the utility. Weapons are more minor in determining my life force generation I would say its 70% utility and 30% weapon skills. Where i say things like grasp and spectral walk or armor are the biggest contributors.

As for shroud use i already know about dropping out when its not effective that but also consider that in matches where people like to "focus the necro first" Its not uncommon for people to also have their shrouds blown away by incoming damage before they can actually use their moves. I still think right now Life force generation if you dont look at things like spectra grasp is riding a fine line between "ok" and "sub par" Depending on your build of choice.

Skill issue or not (depending on who you ask), my point is theoretical (looking toward the future) because i doubt that the nerfs of the recent patch are going to be the only nerfs that come around to necro and its life force generating sources. Ideally people have been gravitating to whatever is left untouched to which sooner or later is nerfed. I wouldnt be surprised if Grasp sees a nerf too at some point if enough people gravitate to it because its not been touched in a while.

Im fine with anet cutting passive sources or even possibly utility sources in the future so long as they are willing to balance it out on the weapon side cause right now the weapon side is a bit minor. (which you dont have to agree with of course).

[RisenHowl.2419]

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

In pvp those skills are considerably harder to land on other players especially if you dont want to just be out right hard punished for playing without any caution (you wont get the auto chain on any one who is not a downed body) the only other skills are the 3 and 5 and the 3 can be strong or poor depending on the situation but the 5 is slow and clunky. Still If we are going to nerf passive life force generating traits then increase the amounts on key skills people already know they "should" be dodging. Make life force generation more active and less passive how ever having low active gains combined with low passive gains will lead to issues if they continue to nerf the traits.

I would say right now necro in general is riding a line having rough life force generation specifically in spvp where people are not falling over dead in large numbers or you are not hidden behind the safety of dozens of other players like you find in wvw.

Reaper in spvp is exceptionally hard to maintain i consider core power more effective personally cause its easier to gain life force through more trait options and its damage can be on par with reapers, unlike reaper its not limited to melee range to be effective and even on a pure power setup it still has more damage skills on its shroud bar than reaper has. At this point they should consider re working the trade off of reaper costing more for what was suppose to be "more damage" because the damage increase is honestly in most cases not noticeable anymore between the things i said above. Even now more people still want reaper damage lowered because "its too much."

These are just my idle thoughts though dont take them too seriously.

@Flumek.9043 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

U mean the clunkiest unrealiable lottery ticket?

Id rather buy oil stocks right now than bet on greatsword hitting anything in pvp.

Using greatsword correctly is 100% a skill issue. This is a spite/curses build to boot, so no extra LF from soul reaping:

you do realize that in quite a few or the majority of these spectral grasp is acting as the majority of your life force gain.While you do land some good pulls and a few death spirals which is not hard to do (its just not consistent do the nature of the skills) the gs's life force generation is relatively minimal in most situations and it certainly does not compare to the up keep cost of reaper. As i said in my statement about the GS3 can be good or poor depending on the situation i wont say its bad but i wont say "oh its amazing" in truth its situational.

Even in your examples your life force generation is pretty poor but scales up to be much greater in the bigger fights due to the nature of spectral grasp which is a massive generator if you manage to yonk a few people in a single cast. Lets not ignore this as its basically on your bar in the whole compilation of examples in that video.

I mean i commend you because you have great combos and i thank you for sharing but it does not change what i said about necromancers weapon skills vs lf generation in general.

Again my argument is that if anet wants to continue to cut down passive sources then they might want to consider increasing the active sources a bit which i dont think is wrong to argue.

You're right, i'm using spectral grasp, walk, and ring to generate LF. Which illuminates that you don't need to rely solely on your weapon sets for it. There's plenty of traits and utilities that offer LF, you just need to learn how to use them effectively. GS3 can give more LF than any other weapon skill when used correctly (up to 36%) by pulling enemies close together in melee range so you can cleave them. Dagger MH offers similar synergy, immob with 3 and follow it up with your AA- instead of chasing people around trying to melee them or wasting that immob to land dagger 2. GS's a pretty amazing weapon set, but it's slow and requires that you know how to set up the skills for maximum impact, which is why if you're having trouble with it, it's a skill issue.

I think a bigger issue with reaper is too many people pop shroud and then stay in it until it runs out, even when they have no moves available to utilize it. You'll find that dropping shroud when it's no longer helpful is going to have a sizeable impact on your ability to use the class.

When starting out with necro, run soul reaping x/x/1 and you'll have at least 20% LF every time you want to enter shroud. The tools are there, you just need to learn how to use them.

Grasp has always been decent in pvp for the sole purpose of building lf quickly especially at the start of a match where anet still chooses to start the necromancer with none! (why thats a thing in 2020 idk) Eternal life is nice but its not worth taking imo (ive been playing long enough to where a 20% start is not going to change much for me in most situations.)

Im actually running a blood, spite, reaper build atm with decimate defenses for extra kicks my life force gen is what i would call "ok" but weapons are not the biggest factor in how good my generation is its the utility. Weapons are more minor in determining my life force generation I would say its 70% utility and 30% weapon skills. Where i say things like grasp and spectral walk or armor are the biggest contributors.

As for shroud use i already know about dropping out when its not effective that but also consider that in matches where people like to "focus the necro first" Its not uncommon for people to also have their shrouds blown away by incoming damage before they can actually use their moves. I still think right now Life force generation if you dont look at things like spectra grasp is riding a fine line between "ok" and "sub par" Depending on your build of choice.

Skill issue or not (depending on who you ask), my point is theoretical (looking toward the future) because i doubt that the nerfs of the recent patch are going to be the only nerfs that come around to necro and its life force generating sources. Ideally people have been gravitating to whatever is left untouched to which sooner or later is nerfed. I wouldnt be surprised if Grasp sees a nerf too at some point if enough people gravitate to it because its not been touched in a while.

Im fine with anet cutting passive sources or even possibly utility sources in the future so long as they are willing to balance it out on the weapon side cause right now the weapon side is a bit minor. (which you dont have to agree with of course).

Right, utilities and traits have always been where the majority of your LF comes from lol. They haven't nerfed LF gen from weapons in years, not that i wouldn't mind some for offhand dagger. Daggers in general are in need of a buff for necro, they're pretty much unused in any meta build.

Hold back before going into a fight, make them push through your team if they want to open on you so your team can get some hits in while you're still out of range. If you can't peel them off, run away from the point and try to draw all of them with you so your team can outnumber whoever's slowest and cap the point.

While i'd like more LF on the weapons, i don't know that it would be balanced in the hands of anyone really familiar with necro. A big part of the skill ceiling for the class is managing LF well =S

[ZDragon.3046]

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@RisenHowl.2419 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

In pvp those skills are considerably harder to land on other players especially if you dont want to just be out right hard punished for playing without any caution (you wont get the auto chain on any one who is not a downed body) the only other skills are the 3 and 5 and the 3 can be strong or poor depending on the situation but the 5 is slow and clunky. Still If we are going to nerf passive life force generating traits then increase the amounts on key skills people already know they "should" be dodging. Make life force generation more active and less passive how ever having low active gains combined with low passive gains will lead to issues if they continue to nerf the traits.

I would say right now necro in general is riding a line having rough life force generation specifically in spvp where people are not falling over dead in large numbers or you are not hidden behind the safety of dozens of other players like you find in wvw.

Reaper in spvp is exceptionally hard to maintain i consider core power more effective personally cause its easier to gain life force through more trait options and its damage can be on par with reapers, unlike reaper its not limited to melee range to be effective and even on a pure power setup it still has more damage skills on its shroud bar than reaper has. At this point they should consider re working the trade off of reaper costing more for what was suppose to be "more damage" because the damage increase is honestly in most cases not noticeable anymore between the things i said above. Even now more people still want reaper damage lowered because "its too much."

These are just my idle thoughts though dont take them too seriously.

@Flumek.9043 said:

@"Infusion.7149" said:Reaper has life force generation on Greatsword though.

U mean the clunkiest unrealiable lottery ticket?

Id rather buy oil stocks right now than bet on greatsword hitting anything in pvp.

Using greatsword correctly is 100% a skill issue. This is a spite/curses build to boot, so no extra LF from soul reaping:

you do realize that in quite a few or the majority of these spectral grasp is acting as the majority of your life force gain.While you do land some good pulls and a few death spirals which is not hard to do (its just not consistent do the nature of the skills) the gs's life force generation is relatively minimal in most situations and it certainly does not compare to the up keep cost of reaper. As i said in my statement about the GS3 can be good or poor depending on the situation i wont say its bad but i wont say "oh its amazing" in truth its situational.

Even in your examples your life force generation is pretty poor but scales up to be much greater in the bigger fights due to the nature of spectral grasp which is a massive generator if you manage to yonk a few people in a single cast. Lets not ignore this as its basically on your bar in the whole compilation of examples in that video.

I mean i commend you because you have great combos and i thank you for sharing but it does not change what i said about necromancers weapon skills vs lf generation in general.

Again my argument is that if anet wants to continue to cut down passive sources then they might want to consider increasing the active sources a bit which i dont think is wrong to argue.

You're right, i'm using spectral grasp, walk, and ring to generate LF. Which illuminates that you don't need to rely solely on your weapon sets for it. There's plenty of traits and utilities that offer LF, you just need to learn how to use them effectively. GS3 can give more LF than any other weapon skill when used correctly (up to 36%) by pulling enemies close together in melee range so you can cleave them. Dagger MH offers similar synergy, immob with 3 and follow it up with your AA- instead of chasing people around trying to melee them or wasting that immob to land dagger 2. GS's a pretty amazing weapon set, but it's slow and requires that you know how to set up the skills for maximum impact, which is why if you're having trouble with it, it's a skill issue.

I think a bigger issue with reaper is too many people pop shroud and then stay in it until it runs out, even when they have no moves available to utilize it. You'll find that dropping shroud when it's no longer helpful is going to have a sizeable impact on your ability to use the class.

When starting out with necro, run soul reaping x/x/1 and you'll have at least 20% LF every time you want to enter shroud. The tools are there, you just need to learn how to use them.

Grasp has always been decent in pvp for the sole purpose of building lf quickly especially at the start of a match where anet still chooses to start the necromancer with none! (why thats a thing in 2020 idk) Eternal life is nice but its not worth taking imo (ive been playing long enough to where a 20% start is not going to change much for me in most situations.)

Im actually running a blood, spite, reaper build atm with decimate defenses for extra kicks my life force gen is what i would call "ok" but weapons are not the biggest factor in how good my generation is its the utility. Weapons are more minor in determining my life force generation I would say its 70% utility and 30% weapon skills. Where i say things like grasp and spectral walk or armor are the biggest contributors.

As for shroud use i already know about dropping out when its not effective that but also consider that in matches where people like to "focus the necro first" Its not uncommon for people to also have their shrouds blown away by incoming damage before they can actually use their moves. I still think right now Life force generation if you dont look at things like spectra grasp is riding a fine line between "ok" and "sub par" Depending on your build of choice.

Skill issue or not (depending on who you ask), my point is theoretical (looking toward the future) because i doubt that the nerfs of the recent patch are going to be the only nerfs that come around to necro and its life force generating sources. Ideally people have been gravitating to whatever is left untouched to which sooner or later is nerfed. I wouldnt be surprised if Grasp sees a nerf too at some point if enough people gravitate to it because its not been touched in a while.

Im fine with anet cutting passive sources or even possibly utility sources in the future so long as they are willing to balance it out on the weapon side cause right now the weapon side is a bit minor. (which you dont have to agree with of course).

While i'd like more LF on the weapons, i don't know that it would be balanced in the hands of anyone really familiar with necro. A big part of the skill ceiling for the class is managing LF well =S

This i can agree on if they just boosted the gains as of right now which they likely dont need to do... (wouldnt mind some QoL life force gain on staff though.) having to run soul marks to make a utility weapon into an actually utility weapon is slightly silly. also yes offhand dagger needs help)

Of course like i said the things i said are in theoretical and they may not come true we may not see more life force gain reductions as so many tools have been cut between traits and a few utilities. I just dont want to see a situation where trait gains are cut, utility gains are cut, and weapon generation remains as is which might be a bit too much cutting.

[Anchoku.8142]

You know, it seems like LF generation on skills should be inversely proportionate to the "value" of the rest of the skill, among other factors like difficulty of landing the skill, its cool down, whether it is offensive, defensive or a utility, etcetera.

I just thought that LF gen is one way to buff mediocre skills or reward difficult use of a skill. Dev's stated something similar long ago in discussions about LF gen on the third attack in an AA chain.

[Dadnir.5038]

The thing with LF gen is that it's difficult to justify nerfs on skills when you just gain 10+ % here and there because something died in the area.