Upcoming Balance Changes

[Jethro.9376]

General

• Dark Leap Combo: Performing a leap finisher from a dark field will now grant players 5 seconds of Dark Aura.
• Dark Aura: This new effect reduces incoming condition damage by 20% and inflicts 2 seconds of torment when you are struck (1-second cooldown per attacker).
• Chaos Armor: This effect has been renamed Chaos Aura. Fixed a bug that prevented this effect from triggering some elementalist traits.
• Skills that destroy missiles will now block missiles instead. This change affects the following skills:
  • Necromancer: Corrosive Poison Cloud

    Necromancer

Necromancers have some solid roles right now across each game type. With this update, we're touching on a few core weapon abilities whose functionality had not been updated in a long time. We're also reworking the reaper's Soul Eater trait into a more general trait that can be more competitive with the other damage options in its tier. Since this trait previously affected greatsword skills, we've done a pass on the weapon skills to keep them up to par.

• Gravedigger: Increased the range from 170 to 180 to make the range a standard multiple of 60.
• Crimson Tide: This skill now grants 2% life force per hit.
• Locust Swarm: This skill will now inflict its effects every 0.5 seconds instead of every second. The duration of this skill has been halved, so the same number of attacks will occur, but they will occur faster. The radius of this skill has been reduced from 210 to 180 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Finally, rather than inflicting damage on each pulse, Locust Swarm will now siphon health from enemies within its area of effect.
• Reaper's Touch: This skill has been significantly reworked, and it has been renamed Soul Grasp.
  • Soul Grasp: This skill has two casts. Each cast sends forth a disembodied hand to inflict vulnerability on foes, grant the necromancer life force, and steal health from a foe.
• Death Spiral: Reduced the recharge time from 12 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased the range from 220 to 240 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Adjusted the visual effects of this skill to be more pronounced. Narrowed the attack cone so that this skill's attack region more accurately matches its animation. Removed bonus damage to targets above 50% health. Increased base damage by 28% in PvE and 6% in PvP and WvW.
• Grasping Darkness: Increased the range from 750 to 900 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Fixed issues that caused this skill to unexpectedly fail when hitting some objects. This skill will no longer be stopped by projectile blocking or reflecting.
• Sand Swell: Fixed a bug that could prevent movement for a short time when the skill failed due to targeting an invalid location.
• Soul Eater: This trait has been reworked. It now increases the strike damage dealt to all foes within a range of 300 by 10%, and it causes the reaper to heal for 5% of the damage dealt to foes within that range. It no longer reduces greatsword-skill recharge by 20%.

[LucianDK.8615]

Intriguing changes. Definitely a solid improvement to Locust Swarm. Though I still think warhorn will outclass focus in being the general offhand choice.I like the normalization of Death Spiral, making it overall more useful, plus available a bit more often.A longer pull in grasping darkness is pure joy, but the real suprise is Soul Eater. I strongly wonder now if it will be able to outedge decimate defenses, or DD still will reign supreme?

[Dadnir.5038]

You forget the "dark aura" stuff and CPC becoming a projectile block instead of projectile destruction. All in all soul eater is probably the most arguable change, especially for sPvP/WvW gamemodes.

[Arzurag.7506]

A dream come true, healing based of damage dealt, I really think this becomes my favorite traitline now. Though, giving up decimate defenses is a huge thing for me but we will see how that turns out to be when the changes are live.The warhorn changes are pretty neat, though I do think that focus is now a solid contender as the off-hand used together with axe, at least in wvw/pvp.

Overall the adjustments are pretty neat and at least in pve I can play necro again, though for any pvp-mode necro keeps being a no-go, until he gets some mobility.I´m happy nonetheless.

[Jethro.9376]

@"Dadnir.5038" said:You forget the "dark aura" stuff and CPC becoming a projectile block instead of projectile destruction. All in all soul eater is probably the most arguable change, especially for sPvP/WvW gamemodes.I edited it in.

Thanks for pointing out.

Will Soul eater only work on GS or all strikes?

[LucianDK.8615]

They said it became a generalist trait.We're also reworking the reaper's Soul Eater trait into a more general trait that can be more competitive with the other damage options in its tier. Since this trait previously affected greatsword skills, we've done a pass on the weapon skills to keep them up to par.Soul Eater: This trait has been reworked. It now increases the strike damage dealt to all foes within a range of 300 by 10%, and it causes the reaper to heal for 5% of the damage dealt to foes within that range. It no longer reduces greatsword-skill recharge by 20%.

[Mourningstar.7309]

New Soul Eater looks good. Will never say no to a damage modifier, particularly with a defensive element to it. New Locust Swarm looks good too, curious to see how it'll compare to the new focus skill, Soul Grasp. Without any numbers, hard to say. Wouldn't mind some good focus skills, I still haven't bothered making an ascended focus since it's generally not worthwhile all around.

I can't be the only one who was hoping for some dagger or staff changes after the "core weapon abilities" line?

[ZDragon.3046]

anet finally listening this shows promise to me...

We have been asking for a focus 4 rework for years and its happenedAlso having life stealing on some skills / traits without taking blood magic is going to be super nice :+1:

Soul Eater was already a trait i loved to run and im 100% going to continue running it now.

[LucianDK.8615]

Staff in general seems to loose out today, usually reduced to the status of a tagging weapon in zergs. But yes, daggers badly needs love.

[Etterwyn.5263]

@"StAllerdyce.3941" said:New Soul Eater looks good. Will never say no to a damage modifier, particularly with a defensive element to it. New Locust Swarm looks good too, curious to see how it'll compare to the new focus skill, Soul Grasp. Without any numbers, hard to say. Wouldn't mind some good focus skills, I still haven't bothered making an ascended focus since it's generally not worthwhile all around.

I can't be the only one who was hoping for some dagger or staff changes after the "core weapon abilities" line?

If the new Soul Eater doesn't have an ICD it'll be a nice indirect buff to dagger. Health AND life force from auto-attack, plus 10% more damage? I'm looking forward to it! Dagger/warhorn could become a sick melee combo.

[killfil.3472]

I like this.

[Sylvari.2953]

"It no longer reduces greatsword-skill recharge by 20%."

Oof. Please chop off 5 seconds from the cooldowns of GS #4 and #5, then!

[LucianDK.8615]

Noone really took that trait, decimate defenses was just too strong.But I really want to see how the new version of Soul Eater compares now.

[EremiteAngel.9765]

Hohoho dark aura mmmmmMy condi Reaper likes this.

[NICENIKESHOE.7128]

If it is 10% for all attacks this could possibly means reaper has 31-32+ dps and score a good spot in raid in terms of consistency and damage, but just my speculations.

[Teratus.2859]

I enjoy the vampire element of Necromancers so this patch is right up my alley.

Changes to Focus 4 sound good, I found it a tad annoying that the skill would often hit allies instead of enemies in a blob this eliminating some of my vun and damage and giving allies pointless regen they wouldn't even need, and even if I wanted to hit allies with it I couldn't target cast it at them anyway so it was a really fickle and unreliable skill tbh.The only real constantly reliable use it had was for killing small groups of ambient creatures for Focus Master.Depending on the cast/recharge time, the amount of lifesteal and vun it deals as well as the life force it gives, Soul Grasp could be a really good upgrade for the Focus on my builds, specially my Minion Master which uses Dagger 2 as it's main healing skill.

I am very excited to see if they finally fixed that infuriating problem with Grasping Darkness as well, Grenth knows how many times i've used that skill only to have the claws get confused and shoot up a wall or hit a boulder and go AWOL while the enemy I targeted gets all confused and get's pulled in a random direction or not at all...Grasping Darkness has been monumentally unreliable in so many instances ever since HoT came out, it gets confused by walls, it gets confused by ceilings, it gets confused by slopes.. boulders, pebbles, tree stumps and sticks.. XDI hope Anet have finally fixed these issues, it's been entertaining at times but the skill is really unreliable and long overdue a fix.

[Teratus.2859]

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

@"StAllerdyce.3941" said:New Soul Eater looks good. Will never say no to a damage modifier, particularly with a defensive element to it. New Locust Swarm looks good too, curious to see how it'll compare to the new focus skill, Soul Grasp. Without any numbers, hard to say. Wouldn't mind some good focus skills, I still haven't bothered making an ascended focus since it's generally not worthwhile all around.

I can't be the only one who was hoping for some dagger or staff changes after the "core weapon abilities" line?

If the new Soul Eater doesn't have an ICD it'll be a nice indirect buff to dagger. Health AND life force from auto-attack, plus 10% more damage? I'm looking forward to it! Dagger/warhorn could become a sick melee combo.

Was thinking the same on that, Soul Eater sounds great but if there is a ICD on the healing I doubt it will compete with DD.Whether it has a healing ICD or not will make or break the trait imo.

[Sigmoid.7082]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

@"StAllerdyce.3941" said:New Soul Eater looks good. Will never say no to a damage modifier, particularly with a defensive element to it. New Locust Swarm looks good too, curious to see how it'll compare to the new focus skill, Soul Grasp. Without any numbers, hard to say. Wouldn't mind some good focus skills, I still haven't bothered making an ascended focus since it's generally not worthwhile all around.

I can't be the only one who was hoping for some dagger or staff changes after the "core weapon abilities" line?

If the new Soul Eater doesn't have an ICD it'll be a nice indirect buff to dagger. Health AND life force from auto-attack, plus 10% more damage? I'm looking forward to it! Dagger/warhorn could become a sick melee combo.

Was thinking the same on that, Soul Eater sounds great but if there is a ICD on the healing I doubt it will compete with DD.Whether it has a healing ICD or not will make or break the trait imo.

I don't see why it would have one when parasitic contagion doesn't and is arguably a stronger trait.

[Teratus.2859]

@Sigmoid.7082 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@Etterwyn.5263 said:

@"StAllerdyce.3941" said:New Soul Eater looks good. Will never say no to a damage modifier, particularly with a defensive element to it. New Locust Swarm looks good too, curious to see how it'll compare to the new focus skill, Soul Grasp. Without any numbers, hard to say. Wouldn't mind some good focus skills, I still haven't bothered making an ascended focus since it's generally not worthwhile all around.

I can't be the only one who was hoping for some dagger or staff changes after the "core weapon abilities" line?

If the new Soul Eater doesn't have an ICD it'll be a nice indirect buff to dagger. Health AND life force from auto-attack, plus 10% more damage? I'm looking forward to it! Dagger/warhorn could become a sick melee combo.

Was thinking the same on that, Soul Eater sounds great but if there is a ICD on the healing I doubt it will compete with DD.Whether it has a healing ICD or not will make or break the trait imo.

I don't see why it would have one when parasitic contagion doesn't and is arguably a stronger trait.

Can't say i've ever used that but parasitic contagion doesn't effect the player in shroud and so far there's nothing confirming that Soul Eater will or won't have the same restriction.Direct damage weapons are typically faster too.. Dagger and Reaper Shroud Scythe come to mind, if the trait gives health in shroud then Reapers Onslaught will be a health fest without an ICD on Soul Eater.. specially if it triggers multiple times on multi hit attacks Soul Spiral and Life Siphon.Necro already has access to a massive amount of lifesteal so giving them even more incoming health without a cooldown may just be pushing that overkill barrier a bit too much..Not that i'm complaining about that though.. I absolutely love being almost unkillable in PvE :D

[Shroud.2307]

I'm incredibly pleased with these changes and looking forward to how they perform.

I've always preferred Focus paired with Axe rather than the more popular choice of Warhorn so I'm particularly excited to play with the changes done to Reaper's Touch. And since I some what recently finished crafting Verdarch, I'll have more reason to play with Warhorn as well. Mind you, when I'm playing core Necromancer, Axe/Focus + Dagger/Warhorn is what I already preferred to use so, nothing will change there, though it may feel nicer!

Overall, I'm thrilled to see what's been done. When I initially began reading the thread before reaching Necromancer, for some reason I was certain it was going to be bad news. Very happy to see I was wrong.

I may or may not book time off work just for these changes, lol.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

From the PVE perspective, I'm not sure that Soul Eater is better than Decimate Defenses.

[Methuselah.4376]

Soul Eater change looks amazing. My only concern would be the lesser crit chance we would be taking if we pick it. With full Berserker's gear, Spotter and Fury that's 75.47% crit chance outside of Shroud. Factoring in +100 precision (though ideally you would take Ferocity) from food that's another 4.76% crit chance for a total of 80.23% crit chance.I think it ultimately would be worth taking SE over DD in an organized group but in solo content, it might be more worth taking DD over SE. Which, mind you, is a good thing as it prevents static builds.Current benchmark is at 30k (it shows less, as the video explains, due to some bug with Axe 2 that sometimes prevented it from going off). A 10% increase would mean that it would be at 33k. But with the lesser crit chance, it will probably be around 32k, which on the current benchmark board would put us above power SlB. I AM horrible at game maths though, so please do correct my logic.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:From the PVE perspective, I'm not sure that Soul Eater is better than Decimate Defenses.

Well, this will be 10% more damage at the cost of a few % of crit chance. In PvE, soul eater will definitely push away decimate defense. No the real issue is the potential sustain that you can squeeze out of soul eater, coupled with soul spiral the sustain might become really insane and in WvW this will definitely become a huge issue.

Still it's less an issue than Soulbeast's unstoppable union which is indirectly buffed. (unless the patch notes ain't complete and a nerf to the trait is hidden)

[Methuselah.4376]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:From the PVE perspective, I'm not sure that Soul Eater is better than Decimate Defenses.

Well, this will be 10% more damage at the cost of a few % of crit chance. In PvE,

soul eater

will definitely push away

decimate defense

. No the real issue is the potential sustain that you can squeeze out of

soul eater

, coupled with

soul spiral

the sustain might become really insane and in WvW this will definitely become a huge issue.

Still it's less an issue than Soulbeast's

unstoppable union

which is indirectly buffed. (unless the patch notes ain't complete and a nerf to the trait is hidden)

Well considering that Reaper has the least amount of defense, it should make up with it with sustain imo. I don't think it will be anywhere near the level of current Scrapper though.

[Nimon.7840]

@Jethro.9376 said:

General

ok, let mo go through this with regards to pve-raids and wvw:

• Dark Leap Combo: Performing a leap finisher from a dark field will now grant players 5 seconds of Dark Aura.
• Dark Aura: This new effect reduces incoming condition damage by 20% and inflicts 2 seconds of torment when you are struck (1-second cooldown per attacker).

nice Change. but doesnt really matter that much on necro, as you only have one leap finisher on one specialtisation

• Chaos Armor: This effect has been renamed Chaos Aura. Fixed a bug that prevented this effect from triggering some elementalist traits.
• Skills that destroy missiles will now block missiles instead. This change affects the following skills:
  • Necromancer: Corrosive Poison Cloud

this is huge, especially when Fighting rangers that had unblockable projectiles. huge nerf.

Necromancer

Necromancers have some solid roles right now across each game type. With this update, we're touching on a few core weapon abilities whose functionality had not been updated in a long time. We're also reworking the reaper's Soul Eater trait into a more general trait that can be more competitive with the other damage options in its tier. Since this trait previously affected greatsword skills, we've done a pass on the weapon skills to keep them up to par.

• Gravedigger: Increased the range from 170 to 180 to make the range a standard multiple of 60.

ok, doenst really matter

• Crimson Tide: This skill now grants 2% life force per hit.

ok, doenst really matter

• Locust Swarm: This skill will now inflict its effects every 0.5 seconds instead of every second. The duration of this skill has been halved, so the same number of attacks will occur, but they will occur faster. The radius of this skill has been reduced from 210 to 180 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Finally, rather than inflicting damage on each pulse, Locust Swarm will now siphon health from enemies within its area of effect.

nice in pvp modes. is the swiftness gained also halfed? this adds some Sustain to necros kit outside of having to take bloodmagic. Question would be: do we get the Health from the lifesteal while in shroud?for pve its a nerf, as life Siphon cannot crit

• Reaper's Touch: This skill has been significantly reworked, and it has been renamed Soul Grasp.
  • Soul Grasp: This skill has two casts. Each cast sends forth a disembodied hand to inflict vulnerability on foes, grant the necromancer life force, and steal health from a foe.

finally a Focus 4 rework. we'll see, if its good for pvp. if People still can easily outrun the projectile, or if it works the same as before (not homing) this can be a really bad skill. also it really hard depends on numbers here

• Death Spiral: Reduced the recharge time from 12 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased the range from 220 to 240 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Adjusted the visual effects of this skill to be more pronounced. Narrowed the attack cone so that this skill's attack region more accurately matches its animation. Removed bonus damage to targets above 50% health. Increased base damage by 28% in PvE and 6% in PvP and WvW.

even more visual tells on gs? pls no! buff for pvp from the dmg side. nerf for pve.

• Grasping Darkness: Increased the range from 750 to 900 to make the range a standard multiple of 60. Fixed issues that caused this skill to unexpectedly fail when hitting some objects. This skill will no longer be stopped by projectile blocking or reflecting.

finally. increasing the range is not necessary i think. but the last Thing, that it cant get blocked anymore is Pretty nice.

• Sand Swell: Fixed a bug that could prevent movement for a short time when the skill failed due to targeting an invalid location.
• Soul Eater: This trait has been reworked. It now increases the strike damage dealt to all foes within a range of 300 by 10%, and it causes the reaper to heal for 5% of the damage dealt to foes within that range. It no longer reduces greatsword-skill recharge by 20%.

for pvp modes: does this only work for greatsword attacks? theres no greatsword mentioned! if its not gs reliant, do we get the heal while in shroud?

another 10% modifier for pve is nice. but we would loose decimate defenses.even with druid in our Group we would only reach 84% critchance (50 from zerker equip, 20 from fury, 9 from spotter, 5 from warrior banner)

so i guess thats not an option