Been away for a while, why was Plaguelands nerfed into what it is now?

[Knighthonor.4061]

why was this nerfed? was a great defense tool. now not so much.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plaguelands/history

[Knighthonor.4061]

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plaguelands/history

wow damn I havnt pvped on my necro since 2017? damn didnt seem that long ago. time fly. I remember when it was a transformation

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

Note that the wiki history page links to the article for the specific game update that brought about the change, which sometimes includes additional information about the reasons.

[EremiteAngel.9765]

@Knighthonor.4061 said:why was this nerfed? was a great defense tool. now not so much.

This was one of the two changes to Necromancers that I was pretty upset about.The other being Speed of Shadows Shroud CD Reduction trait.

The old Plague was our best 'scaling' form of defense.With pulsing stab Great for a variety of situations in WvW, from solo to small scale to large scale.Easily our best all-purpose elite skill.

The new plaguelands? Meh....

They seem determined to strip us of all our potent defensive abilities.

[ZDragon.3046]

I mean the change has its good and bad sides.

The pervious plaugelands dealt next to no damage and made you a mobile blind weakness field which was good for tanking on points but pretty pointless in pve. During the time of HoT anet faced a problem in which everyone in their mother were trying to be tanky the meta was ideally supports and tanks all over the place and no one liked it. They spent a lot of time before PoF culling down a lot of tank / sustain tools and trying to up kill potential in a lot of different spots and my guess is that this was one of those changes.

The current version is more offensive and allows multi actions now that its not a transform. Ideally if you are condi and drop that on a downed body no one is going to res them standing in plaugelands for a few pulses (especially after its been up for a while) is all but suicide. You can now use it more often but its lost nearly all of its tank/ sustain functionality that people were using it for. So depending on how you were using it before and what mode you play you can see it as a buff or nerf.

For pvp sustain its a nerfFor pve its a buffIf you favor offensive play over tank sustain its a buff

From a core necro aspect its a damage buff but a sustain nerf.I personally dont feel it was a nerf or a buff.

Now if they could do something to make our spectral elite better.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

i was pretty upset at that change but not anymore. We have different tools to survive now. The biggest problem of old plague form was that it was a very shallow skill with little plays to be made around it. On necro's end, nothing sucked more then firing it off, then watching yourself get moa'd by mesmers or worst yet engies 2 seoconds later.Not to mention stab being corrupted by enemy necro. Then there's the fact you couldn't use your utilities, shroud...nothing really save changing what you're pulsing. Enemies could output all the condies in the world and you only defense was to "tank it" or leave transform.

On their end, if they had no boon destruction, or moa transform handy, it was a huge ass blob of hp and toughness you couldn't remove. I loved being that big obstinate blob that you couldn't get off point (and made rampage warriors cry), but the main point is - it was a skill with very few counters but at the same one very hard ones. There was not enough healthy plays and counterplays to be made by both necro and his enemies.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

I miss the old plague for sure. made 0 sense to rework the skill, especially since in most cases the reworked skill is worse lol.