Black Storm.6974

I’d say no to anything Achievement related. I just hate doing Achievements. If it was for me, Gw2 would not have a single Achievement.

I hope the daily achievement point cap will never be raised further.

Build Storage Expansion could be changed to give “3 slot per profession” (total number of professions available in the game), limiting the number of slot usable by every profession to 3 per “purchase”). So people using multiple professions wouldn’t be as penalised.

I wish the game could remember different underwater traits for each build template slot. The differences between underwater and ground skills makes me play different builds, but I have to swap them manually every time.

Lichform is not “super op”, it is generally nearly useless. After the duration nerf it got in PvP I really hope it can get a rework.

I don’t want new Elite specs. After Scourge condition I don’t really want to risk getting “another” (heal Scourge is ok for me, in PvE) Elite spec that I hate. I play only necromancer since 2012. I want Scourge to be reworked: More splits between offence and support (I want Shades to be mainly support skills, and possibly Scourge to function as a Shade even when a Shade is active).Internal cooldown on traits removed and these traits adjusted “properly”.Traits activated by Shroud 1 adjusted to only work on shade placement (not f2-3-4-5) and to be stronger when using Scourge.

I’m looking for a Scourge build for raid, but possibly one with a rotation that I can follow (not only skill priorities). I need a rotation to follow, because I’m not able to play well while looking at the skill bar all the time, waiting to use skills as as soon as they are available (in the order of priority), paying attention to all those low cooldown skills and the internal cooldowns of traits. Could someone share a good build that I could enjoy? I had not any problem with any other necromancer build I used, it would be okay even if you share a build with a difficult rotation. I just can’t play the current “META” build for Scourge. The alternative would be returning to use a Condition Reaper (when conditions and epidemics are “needed”), which I miss so much (I enjoyed it far more than Scourge). I’m also interested in condition builds for Reaper.

Lichform in its current state, after the cooldown nerf, makes really no sense to me (PvP and WvW). I propose these changes: Faster transformation.Lichform skill 1 doing cleave damage (600 range, similarly to Wail of Doom) instead of being a projectile. Damage lowered.Lichform skill 2 changed to do aoe blind or to remove conditions.Faster casting time and higher range on Lichform skill 3, also instant teleport when activating it again.Cooldown lowered to 75 seconds.The changes to skill 1 would make its usefulness more consistent (right now its slow projectiles can easily be blocked or reflected). The changes to skill 3 would make it more manageable and suitable for melee combat.

The current PvE power Reaper is the most fun character I have controlled in any game. I just love fighting with it and I’m against any of the proposed rework I’ve read. It is also not very easy and not too complex to play well. I can play it well enough while also keeping attention at what happens in the fight, and this is very important to me. The rotation require to use a lot of skills (with a not too short cooldown) and to cycle inside and outside of shroud, but it don’t feel too complex to me. Not blindly following the rotation can also be important, based on the scenario. Most of the damage coming from shroud skills also means that avoiding taking damage while in shroud is necessary to not loose a lot of dps. The aoe blind, the CCs, the way “life steel” (I rarely use that lately) and life force generation scale, make Reaper very fun and effective against group of mobs. Also, I love its fluidity. With Reaper I have free movement while using almost every skill and this is really helpful when fighting.

Increase the Death Shroud degeneration is not a good solution (for that problem that only exist in the mind of some people), because core necro needs to stay away from its enemies, while being able to do some damage in Shroud. Core necro can’t efficiently fight in melee. Back in 2013-2014 many people knew well how to fight a core necromancer. It was even much much stronger than now when playing a bunker build, but it was not “META” (trend is probably a better definition for what people call META in PvP) and almost none was playing a bunker build. People are just asking to remove the bunker option from necromancer, reducing the variety of “viable” (viable = at least decent) builds. Now, I hope Arenanet will not “cripple” the offensive builds usable by necromancer, just to reduce the survive ability of an already “crippled” bunker necro (change that would let to no choice to necromancer about which role to fill. Scourge healing/support got removed already, from the “viable” options).

Core necro is not even the best choice (for a necro) right now, it has so many weakness that any experienced player (if playing a build with good damage) could use CCs and kill it very fast. If the necro got two defensive trait lines, than it has to have a lot of resistance, otherwise it would be useless with its garbage damage and all the weaknesses it got. Get damage while trying to survive is the role of a bunker, and core necromancer already has weaknesses that will never allow it to be really efficient in this role. Maybe the condition damage “needs” to get some reduction. Anet said they plan to make other changes of the “same nature” (coefficient nerfs), so it is possibile that condition damage will be the next. Core necromancer survive ability was really bad before the power coefficients nerf, and now it is just enough to not be useless.

Blood Magic should have been shaved alongside the damage nerfs though. Blood Magic got some nerf alongside the damage nerf and some other nerf few days later.Only Unholy Martyr got nerfed after. The minors could all do with a 20% shave or so.Transfusion got nerfed too, alongside the power coefficients nerf. I wouldn’t mind if they nerf the life steals by 20%, but I don’t think it is “necessary”.

Blood Magic should have been shaved alongside the damage nerfs though. Blood Magic got some nerf alongside the damage nerf and some other nerf few days later.

Probably you don’t understand much about the necromancer. There is not a “viable” (decent) support/healer spec for PvP, no matter how someone “get good”. Tempest has nothing to do with it.

Arenanet, for years, balanced PvP necromancer only for “few builds”, letting everything else “die”. Scourge, for example, was supposed to be our support spec, but no decent support/healer build can exist right now. We are not in this situation because it was overperforming, but because trying to “balance” Scourge condition and other aspects of PvP (or WvW), Arenanet has totally ignored the existence of the support/healing option. A Scourge can’t be a decent healer with “no stability”, bad defence, even worst defence if away from an active shade, bad mobility. It has to get better at least in one of these aspects to become a decent option. Right now it can be easily focused and CC locked to death in few seconds. I hope that Arenanet will think a bit more about the side effects of their balance patches. I feel like over the years the variety of “viable” builds/roles is diminished a lot. The recent changes to the power coefficients helped to increase the variety of “viable” builds, I have to say that. Maybe now the Scourge spec needs a big rework (not small changes). Also, I’d touch only Scourge to fix Scourge, the other trait lines are fine and more balanced than ever.

The spear has very low damage and life force generation (unfortunately it was not included in the underwater combat rework). I’d consider using Eternal life there, but Signets of Suffering (trait) + Signet of Undeath and Signet of Spite could be better. I use Eternal Life when out of combat, to help me gaining back life force. I often take it on my Scourge healer, now having extra vitality is no longer as important.

I don’t really want our last elite transformation to be replaced with something else. Anyway, I’m not against a small rework of Lichform (maybe replace skill 1 and 2 with something else). I also hope for the return of Plague, it was so much more interesting than Plaguelands.

Thank you for the effort you are putting into developing build and equipment “templates”. They seems good to me and I hope you can make them even better with future updates. I’m glad we have this official system instead of that third party tool that most people would never use.

Necromancer, by design, has great weaknesses (no stability or low stability depending on the spec, few break stun at long cooldown, very low mobility, no invulnerability) and low damage (especially core necromancer, outside of Lichform that I expect to be balanced). Core necromancer don’t even have the option to have a decent damage. Killing necromancers in “no time” is still very possible after the patch, many people simply choose to play builds that can’t do that. There is just to force people to play what “works”. Someone is pretending to kill necromancers built to be very tanky (but with big weaknesses that every necromancer has) by doing low damage and low CC pressure and that does not make sense. I’d suggest to remove from PvP the amulets used for the most tanky builds (they are used by necromancer and other professions). They really don’t fit well into PvP after the damage of everyone has been lowered significantly. Several people are also worried about the return of a “tank meta”, this way that can not happen. After removing those amulets, balancing things will be much easier. In case those amulets will stay, I agree that a nerf to the necromancer sustain “needs” to be compensated by a buff to something else (maybe some damage and corruption). Anyway, I hope necromancer will have the option to be something different from the “boon corrupter”. I’m not considering condition damage because I expect ArenaNet to nerf it for every profession, maybe similarly to the power coefficients nerfs.

I don’t think the changes proposed by the opener can solve the problem. Probably there is still to tweak the “base” around which every profession will be balanced (maybe as suggested by @"KrHome.1920" here: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1175447#Comment_1175447). As said in one of my previous comments: Core necro has “garbage” power damage (outside of Lichform), very low mobility, no access to stability, few long cooldown break stuns, no invulnerability. Most of its damage comes from slow projectiles that can be blocked, reflected, or even evaded by sidestepping. Also, it has good damage resistance, potentially high life steal (situational) and condition cleaning. Reaper has better damage, a bit better mobility (from Shroud 2) and better stability, but it has to fight a lot in melee range. Their weaknesses are very easy to exploit, but probably many people reacted to the power nerf by using a more tanky build and using less CC skills. Now some of these people want to easily kill necromancer even doing low damage and low CC pressure. The current necromancer is exactly what Arenanet wanted it to be, with even more exploitable weaknesses than before. I can “see” few solutions:1- People can stop pretending to kill necromancer with low damage and low CC pressure, adapting their builds to the current state of the game.2- Arenanet could nerf the necromancer sustain and buff its damage.3- Arenanet could rework the necromancer to be more similar to other professions, taking away passive defences and giving active defences and more mobility to it (I don’t expect it to happen and I don’t want it to happen).4- Arenanet could remove from PvP the amulets used for tanky builds, forcing people to play more offensive builds (my currently preferred solution). I expect a balance patch to nerf condition damage for every profession, similarly to the power damage nerf.

I agree. Maybe setting a more manageable “base” by removing one or few amulets is a better idea than continuously try to nerf and buff things without coming to a solution. I’d also let details about profession balance outside of the discussion, because this discussion is more about tweaking the new base for the future balance changes.

This is one of the solutions I was thinking about in “this post” (https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1175231/#Comment_1175231):

Maybe they could remove from PvP the amulets used for “tanky” builds, letting the “tankiness” of every profession mainly come from skills and traits. Necromancer still has a lot of big weaknesses, it also has bad damage (especially necro core) and without these amulets:1- Necromancer will be lass tanky.2- Other professions will be forced into amulets that allow to do more damage (good damage and CC should be required to counter necromancers, since it is designed to be extremely weak to that).

They said (16/05/2017 patch notes): Secondarily, we've long felt that the Plague elite was lackluster and was in need of a rework. It was probably the most used necromancer elite skill, it was used in every game mode. I don’t understand how they felt it was lackluster. Maybe because it was not increasing our condition dps.

Thank you for reminding me of Gluttony. Plague used to have self bleeding every second when it became a corruption skills, later changed to make us bleed only on activation. July 07, 2015 This skill no longer inflicts bleeding every second while it is active.Instead, it inflicts 10 seconds of bleeding when it is first activated.When traited with Master of Corruption, it inflicts 4 seconds of poison.June 23, 2015 Specialization update:This skill is now considered a corruption skill and applies 1 stack of bleeding for 2 seconds every second it is active on you.Increased the poison duration from 1 second to 2 seconds per pulse.