Black Storm.6974

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, mobility (from Shroud 2) and 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.

If I’m not wrong Plague became a corruption skill before the release of Plaguelands. Lichform is a spectral skill, but necromancer do not have any trait related to spectral skills (not anymore).

Years ago Arenanet removed “Plague” from the game. It was a useful skill, even if not as useful as it used to be (since the big condition rework, it was not as tanky as it used to be in PvP and WvW). It allowed interesting tricks in every game mode, it was really versatile, and it was my favourite skill. We got in return a totally different skill (“Plaguelands”), a skill that I never really enjoyed. For me, it was just “a condition mess”. I still hope for the return of Plague, maybe as a “new” elite skill (not exactly as it was before, or it would make necromancers too tanky). I hope they will not remove Lichform too, our last elite transformation.

In WvW Zerg fights it is incredibly weak. I tried core necromancer with Lich Form. Most of my attacks just got reflected and I have been useless for the entire duration of Lichform and Death Shroud. They are just so easy to counter in group fights.

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.

I just want to say that I find “internal cooldowns” to be the most annoying thing about Gw2. I just find annoying and unnecessarily hard having to manage all these “hidden cooldowns” on top of the cooldown of my skills. I hope every trait that has more than 1 second internal cooldown will get a rework to make it “unnecessary”.

I can see a single reason why someone could think that core necro is really OP. Someone reacted to the power nerf by playing a tankier build and to the CC nerfs by using less CC. Now these people pretend to kill necro with low damage and low CC pressure. Some necromancers think to be OP for this reason. Those who still try to focus the core necromancer (not alone if it’s built to be tanky) by doing “good” damage and CC pressure can still destroy it. I have already seen “that”, many years ago. A tanky core necromancer also has “garbage” damage (outside of Lichform).

I think people who are complaining about the strength of necromancers are mostly imagining things. Life force regen is not too much. Also, core necromancer would still need to be heavily buffed. People are talking about that incredible “tankiness”, but it can still be cc locked to death in no time by two enemies. Anyway, I expect it to be nerfed, simply because complaints are usually treated as a valid reason for nerfing things (no other reason is needed).

The nerf of Sand Cascade and Sand Flare would be a big nerf to Scourge support/healer and this is really not needed. Instead of just reducing the base barrier, you could increase the healing coefficient, to not touch Scourge healer. Also, I don’t really understand why you plan to apply these changes to PvP. I’d like to play support Scourge in PvP, but it really needs to be buffed, certainly not nerfed. I’d make something to improve its self sustain (PvP only).