Black Storm.6974

This is the game where years ago people could be instantly kicked by the group just for playing Necromancer (no matter how they could play well, often there was not even the time to show it, and anyway “none” could see it), the game where most groups was accepting only “4 Warriors and 1 Mesmer” composition for CoF P1.This was a game where people used to blindly shout to others imagining that they had a low DPS. DPS meters helped to fight all that, and now we have a way less toxic PvE environment, who wasn’t here before HoT can’t even imagine how the game was. Toxicity, elitism and ignorance was everywhere. Now it seems to be in a “paradise” compared to those times. There are also underused builds that can do better DPS than “META” builds, based on the encounter and based on the groups you play with. DPS meters help to see that. There is no reason to ban DPS meters, they helped to make the game a better place. Also, it is not like that toxicity is now directed to people doing low DPS, it is not. People doing low DPS are the normality in Fractal t4 and rarely someone have something to argue about that.People that really want a good group just look for CMs and ask for kill proofs. Nothing wrong about looking for experienced players for Fractal 99 and 100 CM, with inexperienced players it can turn in 4 hours of frustration. Still, there are parties of “kind people” offering training for it.

I get what your driving at but you do realize they only lost 50 power/condi yes? That's a roughly 1% loss. Not that I am complaining mind you; I recently got into power soulbeast and am really enjoying it both in raids and in fractals so naturally I was terrified that it would be nerfed to the ground (but so far it doesn't seem so). This happened to me with staff weaver as well: the moment I got comfy with the rotation, it was obliterated. I think the relevant thing for me about that is when people continuously imply that Anet 'isn't aware' of the benchmarks and the DPS levels as the reason why they keep making DPS QQ threads ... but clearly Anet is aware and even showing us here they WILL act on it. Your experience is indicative of what I believe to be the truth about balance in this game ... it's not about performance equivalence in DPS. It's a dead end. So now you're saying Anet consider performance and benchmarks in their balancing? What do you mean NOW? I've always said that Anet has some process that they monitor and evaluate Classes for changes ... I'm NOT saying it's related to the DPS measurements that players worship to push meta. Good try though. I really wish I had the time sift through your posts because you are contradicting things you've said and defended so adamantly in the past. This person is full with contradictions. Anyway, it might actually be a good thing: it could mean he/she is slightly changing opinions. Human after all? :) Although he/she will never admit that! About admitting you're wrong every now and then: it might look like I made a mistake in one of my previous posts. Early testing with Snowcrows point towards a 2k to 3k DPS increase on the Power Reaper, which could bring us up to 33k or 34k DPS. At best that's near 10% DPS increase. Still not enough imo, but definitely not insignificant either! One more patch like this, and we're up with the big boys :). BIG DISCLAIMER though, it's early testing and from hearsay ... nothing set in stone yet!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ-HZXBYDUU&start=4s 33.4-5k is as high as they could reach. They were trying hard to push for 34k but sadly that couldn't be reached. They managed to reach 34k! But ye it's very RNG dependent so would say average is 32k, which is 2.4k more than the previously expected average of 29.6kDo you know how they managed to reach 34k? I should be sleeping but I think I’ll go back to test power Reaper :)

I think a DPS meter built in game would really help many people to improve. There are many people that don’t really know how they are performing, also people that have a wrong perception about that. Even if personal DPS would be hidden to others unless they give permission, people could see other people DPS compared to self DPS. They could be willing to improve, they could be curious to understand how they could perform so well.Probably, now most people are simply unaware of their performances (DPS wise). The community could really improve, and finding good groups could become easier. Most people will never use ArcDPS, many people won’t even believe they are doing low DPS when someone tell that to them. ArcDPS is a useful software, but it can’t bring the community improvement that a DPS meter built in game could bring. Anyway, I hope ArenaNet will also let people use ArcDPS, if that is what they want.

It is not even worth to be Adept, it is a handicap that players can choose to put on their character (probably an oversight from the ArenaNet balance team). In PvE is different and useful, so I’d not ask to remove it nor to move it. They just need to balance it. I propose 1 target increase in WvW, and the removal of the 100% cooldown increase in PvP and WvW.

Personally, I enjoyed many of the traits designed by ArenaNet (especially the ones not entirely offensive).Unfortunately they are not always useful and sometimes they get destroyed by balance patches, and they don’t get touched again for years, if ever.An example is Blighter’s Boon, very limited since the nerf, because the only boon Necromancer could reliably apply was Might, and not with “every build”.A better example is what remains of Sand Savant in competitive modes after the nerfs, now we can choose it as a self handicap, and it is a Grandmaster trait. About Blood Bank, for future balance I’d like if they could at least split the effect of the trait into two effects: n percent of self healing is converted to barrier when Health is full.n percent of incoming healing from allies is converted to barrier when Health is full.I hope these effects can be balanced separately, splitting them could avoid future balance problems (problems like the percentage being tuned down to 50% because of allies support, making the trait even worse for self support). That’s my priority, I don’t expect a full rework of Blood Bank to happen soon. Then well, I’d also appreciate something for when we are not at full Health.

Wrong message

I get what your driving at but you do realize they only lost 50 power/condi yes? That's a roughly 1% loss. Not that I am complaining mind you; I recently got into power soulbeast and am really enjoying it both in raids and in fractals so naturally I was terrified that it would be nerfed to the ground (but so far it doesn't seem so). This happened to me with staff weaver as well: the moment I got comfy with the rotation, it was obliterated. I think the relevant thing for me about that is when people continuously imply that Anet 'isn't aware' of the benchmarks and the DPS levels as the reason why they keep making DPS QQ threads ... but clearly Anet is aware and even showing us here they WILL act on it. Your experience is indicative of what I believe to be the truth about balance in this game ... it's not about performance equivalence in DPS. It's a dead end. So now you're saying Anet consider performance and benchmarks in their balancing? What do you mean NOW? I've always said that Anet has some process that they monitor and evaluate Classes for changes ... I'm NOT saying it's related to the DPS measurements that players worship to push meta. Good try though. I really wish I had the time sift through your posts because you are contradicting things you've said and defended so adamantly in the past. This person is full with contradictions. Anyway, it might actually be a good thing: it could mean he/she is slightly changing opinions. Human after all? :) Although he/she will never admit that! About admitting you're wrong every now and then: it might look like I made a mistake in one of my previous posts. Early testing with Snowcrows point towards a 2k to 3k DPS increase on the Power Reaper, which could bring us up to 33k or 34k DPS. At best that's near 10% DPS increase. Still not enough imo, but definitely not insignificant either! One more patch like this, and we're up with the big boys :). BIG DISCLAIMER though, it's early testing and from hearsay ... nothing set in stone yet!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ-HZXBYDUU&start=4s 33.4-5k is as high as they could reach. They were trying hard to push for 34k but sadly that couldn't be reached. Unfortunately, usually in real fights that rotation would have “significantly” lower DPS (cause it is in serious lack of Life Force generation and people will take damage while in Shroud), not only compared to the DPS we can see in the video, but also compared to the average DPS. There is no way it can become META for real fights, probably what is shown in that video is only an attempt to maximise the DPS on the idle golem.

Considering how dependant on RNG Reaper DPS currently is (on the current META build) cause it is in lack of critical chance, I’d generally consider the average DPS as the “Reaper DPS”. Reaper DPS on golem was at 29600 (Snow Crows benchmark) before the 07/07/2020 balance patch.

I don’t really like that Blood Bank is designed to be only good when supported by allies.In general, I would enjoy a more selfish Necromancer in competitive modes, to make it more in line with what Necromancer is in PvE.Selfish as someone who doesn’t need to be supported to be somewhat good, not as someone who can’t support anyone.

I hope they will at least add 1 target increase to Sand Savant and remove from it the 100% cooldown increase on Manifest Sand Shade.Right now Sand Savant (grandmaster trait) seems like one of those gambits we can put on a character when playing in the Queen’s Gauntlet.

They moved Signets of Sufferings from Grandmaster to Master tier, so it is not that strange that it is now less effective. Their concern was that it could not be powerful enough to be worth taking instead of the other Grandmaster traits, but now it no longer have to “compete” with them for anything (it “competes” with different traits and what was the precedent strength of SoS is than irrelevant).Honestly I think it was worth before as it is now, situationally (like every other trait). Also, someone could ask why they thought that such a powerful Grandmaster trait was not worth taking over the others.A theory is that our community is partially responsible for that. In PvE it was not used by many players despite being generally the most “powerful” choice for Reaper, and the most effective tactic available to most Reaper in most groups, for many encounters (we didn’t realise that as a community, and the main cause of that is “people sharing wrong informations”). Also, Signet of the Locust got buffed. Signet of Vampirism was reworked, not nerfed. I know the SoS nerf eventually affect all these Signets anyway. Let’s start theory crafting and see how Signets could be used now. For PvE several of them are for sure useful alongside Signets of Suffering (Signet of Vampirism, Signet of Spite, Signet of Undeath). For PvP and WvW, we’ll eventually see, the balance patch was released yesterday.

Interesting. I do wonder what caused the bump upwards for pve Reapers. If theres a new skill/trait combination that now is better.Likewise I am wondering for pve dps Scourges, though they still seeem locked into having epidemic and blood is power. But with selfShade back, you have more reach. Maybe mostly the cooldown reduction on Wells and the new Well of Darkness, and a slightly modified rotation.

ANet logic: "No-one's using Signets or Signets of Suffering because they're not strong enough" "Lets nerf them!" Just in case people haven't realized it ... the change to SoS is to encourage use of shroud ... like LOTS of the other changes to necro in the last 2 years. So if you are trying to rationalize this change, don't do it from a performance perspective. #themebasedchangesI think Warhorn and Focus reworks was themed based changes too, it was clear seeing what they wrote in the patch note. I’m not really sure about SoS anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if they wanted to slightly nerf the trait “after” moving it from Grandmaster to Master tier. Anyway, there was different ways to nerf the trait, and probably for “theme” reasons they chose the removal of the enhancement outside of Shroud.

ANet logic: "No-one's using Signets or Signets of Suffering because they're not strong enough" "Lets nerf them!" Signets of Suffering provided great survivability before the last balance patch, at the cost of a small portion of DPS. Now the survivability got lowered, but Signets of Suffering is almost on par with Awaken the Pain, DPS wise. It is difficult to say what is doing slightly more DPS than the other.Anyway I’m sure it will generally be the best option for most things in instanced PvE content, for Power Reaper. Until yesterday your logic was that everything that is not the best for potential DPS is useless for PvE instanced content (obviously you were totally wrong, but still it was your logic). You’ve got that extra DPS on Signets of Suffering builds, maybe you have still to realise it. For competitive modes, Signets of Suffering was probably better before the update. So, your comment at least for competitive modes makes sense, maybe. ArenaNet said that the trait was not powerful enough to warrant taking over the other grandmaster traits, and it is true that is has been nerfed, but also that it has to compete with weaker traits. I’ll copy my precedent comment:_It seems to be higher from the first testings, but it could be because of RNG. It provides 270 extra Power while in Shroud, with Signet of Spite (20 more than Awaken the Pain). Outside of Shroud we would have 250 less power at 25 Might stacks, but most of our damage comes from Shroud, thanks to the additional Ferocity. Also, now there is also Well of Darkness increasing our damage in Shroud, in addition to Nightfall and Well of Suffering. Then, there is Signet of Vampirism that deals some damage every second while in Shroud, thanks to Signets of Suffering. It could really be the best choice DPS wise, even sustained. It will probably be better in Fractal where damage bursts are more effective. Edit: after more testing I think the DPS is very similar anyway. While a huge portion of our dps does come from Reaper's Shroud, you would be making an already weak out of shroud rotation MUCH weaker by that 250 reduction in power, to the point that it will drag the rest of the dps very heavily. The damage from Signet of Vampirism is not enough to make up for GS doing less damage. For the most ideal dps rotation, you do not want to stay in shroud for much longer than your Soul Barbs is active, ergo keeping the time you have without Soul Barbs active for as little as possible. It's more worth taking SoS if you are running alone with no one to give you much might I think. In Fractals, Awaken the Pain will still win out if you have a HB.If you enjoy Signet play fair play to you and it works in open world and lower tier fractals. But for high end PvE, with an organized group, Awaken the Pain will win out every time. I am glad, however, that I am able to take Signet of Vampirism instead of Blood Fiend even without SoS because having minions is annoying as they can keep you in combat and the active on the signet I find better than the minion and it is technically a party/squad wide damage increase with the 25 stacks of life siphon on it...not that that will be use purposefully in a dps rotation as the cast time is too long but at least if you do have to heal you can squeeze some more damage out. I can say what I said because I’ve tested the traits (really not enough yet, and initially the RNG favoured SoS a lot). I have not tried it staying in Shroud for a long time, but executing a proper rotation to try maximising the DPS. Most of the damage is made in Shroud even if you play properly with Soul Barbs, and that makes the additional power while in Shroud more relevant (I don’t know how much). DPS wise, the difference between the two choices will probably be small, nothing “heavy” in favour of Awaken of the Pain [now I think “it” (Awaken the Pain) could win by about 2%, but I’m getting inconsistent results, I hate how much RNG there is in Reaper rotation]. There is one thing I can add in favour of Awaken the Pain, if someone can’t execute all the Shroud part of the rotation cause it took too much damage, then the power loss will really drag down the DPS a lot (but there is a great solution among the Signets of Suffering builds: slotting Signet of Undeath). Signet of Undeath alongside Signet of Spite and Well of Suffering or Well of Darkness (with Signets of Suffering), is still a viable and powerful choice for anyone that feel the necessity to have more Life Force generation (the DPS loss seems similar to before the balance patch, it could be only 4-5% less than the the build that provide the best potential DPS). It provides much more reliable DPS and better survivability for a minor DPS loss. Also less need to lose DPS by avoiding damage when the support is bad (in cases like those, that become the build with the highest DPS). Usually, you know you need more Life Force generation when you can’t execute all your rotation without any pause. It is very common when playing some Raids (even in groups with high LI requirements) or some high level Fractals with “pugs”, for the vast majority of power Reapers. It is still important to learn to avoid what you can avoid without losing DPS, and to dodge certain attacks that “you can’t just tank”. Obviously I’m talking about something that could be optimal for most Reapers to complete the most difficult instanced PvE group contents that the game provides. Which elite skill are you using? I am thinking about trying this for open and maybe fractals just for fun.Generally I use what’s probably optimal for what I have to do. Also, this is not the build I’m using, I change things in the build based on the encounter and the group I’m playing with. I share true “min maxing”, not fantasies like “in instanced PvE the personal heal is not needed because the damage can be avoided, and the only important thing is maximising the potential DPS”. Truth is that every day people trying to do that have very bad performances. Not all damage can be avoided, it is not always worth to avoid it. Most people play in “bad groups” with people that can’t properly execute a rotation. Only a small minority of players is willing to put the effort needed to start playing very well. For most Reapers, the Life Force generated by their weapons is often not even nearly enough to execute the rotation in the groups they play with. Many of these problems can be solved with minimal loss of potential DPS. About the Elite skill: mostly Chilled to the Bone for group of mobs (when I think it could be worth), Lichform for burst damage against bosses, Flesh Golem for CC and sustained damage.

Yes. Transfusion is the Scourge main heal and a great skill to ress allies, while Blood Bank is only for self survivability (it don’t give anything to allies).

ANet logic: "No-one's using Signets or Signets of Suffering because they're not strong enough" "Lets nerf them!" Signets of Suffering provided great survivability before the last balance patch, at the cost of a small portion of DPS. Now the survivability got lowered, but Signets of Suffering is almost on par with Awaken the Pain, DPS wise. It is difficult to say what is doing slightly more DPS than the other.Anyway I’m sure it will generally be the best option for most things in instanced PvE content, for Power Reaper. Until yesterday your logic was that everything that is not the best for potential DPS is useless for PvE instanced content (obviously you were totally wrong, but still it was your logic). You’ve got that extra DPS on Signets of Suffering builds, maybe you have still to realise it. For competitive modes, Signets of Suffering was probably better before the update. So, your comment at least for competitive modes makes sense, maybe. ArenaNet said that the trait was not powerful enough to warrant taking over the other grandmaster traits, and it is true that is has been nerfed, but also that it has to compete with weaker traits. I’ll copy my precedent comment:_It seems to be higher from the first testings, but it could be because of RNG. It provides 270 extra Power while in Shroud, with Signet of Spite (20 more than Awaken the Pain). Outside of Shroud we would have 250 less power at 25 Might stacks, but most of our damage comes from Shroud, thanks to the additional Ferocity. Also, now there is also Well of Darkness increasing our damage in Shroud, in addition to Nightfall and Well of Suffering. Then, there is Signet of Vampirism that deals some damage every second while in Shroud, thanks to Signets of Suffering. It could really be the best choice DPS wise, even sustained. It will probably be better in Fractal where damage bursts are more effective. Edit: after more testing I think the DPS is very similar anyway. While a huge portion of our dps does come from Reaper's Shroud, you would be making an already weak out of shroud rotation MUCH weaker by that 250 reduction in power, to the point that it will drag the rest of the dps very heavily. The damage from Signet of Vampirism is not enough to make up for GS doing less damage. For the most ideal dps rotation, you do not want to stay in shroud for much longer than your Soul Barbs is active, ergo keeping the time you have without Soul Barbs active for as little as possible. It's more worth taking SoS if you are running alone with no one to give you much might I think. In Fractals, Awaken the Pain will still win out if you have a HB.If you enjoy Signet play fair play to you and it works in open world and lower tier fractals. But for high end PvE, with an organized group, Awaken the Pain will win out every time. I am glad, however, that I am able to take Signet of Vampirism instead of Blood Fiend even without SoS because having minions is annoying as they can keep you in combat and the active on the signet I find better than the minion and it is technically a party/squad wide damage increase with the 25 stacks of life siphon on it...not that that will be use purposefully in a dps rotation as the cast time is too long but at least if you do have to heal you can squeeze some more damage out. I can say what I said because I’ve tested the traits (really not enough yet, and initially the RNG favoured SoS a lot). I have not tried it staying in Shroud for a long time, but executing a proper rotation to try maximising the DPS. Most of the damage is made in Shroud even if you play properly with Soul Barbs, and that makes the additional power while in Shroud more relevant (I don’t know how much). DPS wise, the difference between the two choices will probably be small, nothing “heavy” in favour of Awaken of the Pain [now I think “it” (Awaken the Pain) could win by about 2%, but I’m getting inconsistent results, I hate how much RNG there is in Reaper rotation]. There is one thing I can add in favour of Awaken the Pain, if someone can’t execute all the Shroud part of the rotation cause it took too much damage, then the power loss will really drag down the DPS a lot (but there is a great solution among the Signets of Suffering builds: slotting Signet of Undeath). Signet of Undeath alongside Signet of Spite and Well of Suffering or Well of Darkness (with Signets of Suffering), is still a viable and powerful choice for anyone that feel the necessity to have more Life Force generation (the DPS loss seems similar to before the balance patch, it could be only 4-5% less than the the build that provide the best potential DPS). It provides much more reliable DPS and better survivability for a minor DPS loss. Also less need to lose DPS by avoiding damage when the support is bad (in cases like those, that become the build with the highest DPS). Usually, you know you need more Life Force generation when you can’t execute all your rotation without any pause. It is very common when playing some Raids (even in groups with high LI requirements) or some high level Fractals with “pugs”, for the vast majority of power Reapers. It is still important to learn to avoid what you can avoid without losing DPS, and to dodge certain attacks that “you can’t just tank”. Obviously I’m talking about something that could be optimal for most Reapers to complete the most difficult instanced PvE group contents that the game provides.

ANet logic: "No-one's using Signets or Signets of Suffering because they're not strong enough" "Lets nerf them!" Signets of Suffering provided great survivability before the last balance patch, at the cost of a small portion of DPS. Now the survivability got lowered, but Signets of Suffering is almost on par with Awaken the Pain, DPS wise. It is difficult to say what is doing slightly more DPS than the other.Anyway I’m sure it will generally be the best option for most things in instanced PvE content, for Power Reaper. Until yesterday your logic was that everything that is not the best for potential DPS is useless for PvE instanced content (obviously you were totally wrong, but still it was your logic). You’ve got that extra DPS on Signets of Suffering builds, maybe you have still to realise it. For competitive modes, Signets of Suffering was probably better before the update. So, your comment at least for competitive modes makes sense, maybe (the question that has to be answered is not if it is now stronger than before the update, but if it is now a more valid choice than before compared to the other two traits we can chose). ArenaNet said that the trait was not powerful enough to warrant taking over the other grandmaster traits, and it is true that it has been nerfed, but also that it has to compete with weaker traits, and at least for PvE instanced content it is now the most powerful option.

Mathematically and realistically is very difficult for this to happen and unlikely this will be the case in general. It seems to be higher from the first testings, but it could be because of RNG. It provides 270 extra Power while in Shroud, with Signet of Spite (20 more than Awaken the Pain). Outside of Shroud we would have 250 less power at 25 Might stacks, but most of our damage (both burst and sustained) comes from Shroud, thanks to the additional Ferocity. Also, now there is also Well of Darkness increasing our damage in Shroud, in addition to Nightfall and Well of Suffering. Then, there is Signet of Vampirism that deals damage every second while in Shroud, thanks to Signets of Sufferings. It could really be the best choice DPS wise, even sustained. It will probably be better in Fractal where damage bursts are more effective. Edit: after more testing I think the DPS is very similar anyway.

I think Signets of Suffering could win even DPS wise against Awaken the Pain (also thanks to Signet of Vampirism stealing Health while in Shroud).

The problem is that there is high probability that there will always be a "next in line" mandatory thing unless every profession can provide the rigorously the same things. For some people this would spell the end of "diversity" and possibly "thematic". The truth is that in 2013 to 2014 fire fields and blast were "mandatory" because they were the main source of might for your party and any field that came polluting the fire fields were frowned upon. Then until HoT, the superiority of elementalist's conjured weapons (mainly bow and GS but also hammer) followed that. After HoT release we had mesmer's quickness/alacrity and shared blurr (with chrono) along with Druid load of shared % damage increase and Warrior's banner. Chrono lost shared blurr while guardian and revenant came contending on quickness and alacrity. Druid exchanged some of it's increased of damage for might while warrior's banner lost a bit of power. Scourge tried it's luck at sharing it's "2nd health bar" with barrier. (note that it's not an exhaustive list, since I don't mention things like projectile reflexion/block or stealth) There will always be a "next in line" and ANet need to add new things to keep their players away from boredom. The main issue of the necromancer remain that it's design and the design of it's tools is not PvE friendly. Managing foes's boons isn't a thing in PvE for numerous reasons (nor should it be a thing). ANet still struggle with the concept of conditions being a slow ramping damaging mean (and it's especially true in PvE). A mean of damage that doesn't deal critical hits when critical hits allow you to increase the damage of a hit by x4 and proc a few effects just can't be competitive in PvE (even if it heal). And conditions effects being mostly negated by a mechanism in PvE don't help in any way either. As for the poor ability to deal with hard CC in compensation of a high amount of health points, this is the icing on the cake.Is there a way around to fix all that? Like you said, that wouldn't be an easy feat at all. Could ANet do some things that would soothe a bit all these issue? Yes and no, soothing all the issues is an impossible task, however making some of them less of a pain shouldn't be that difficult (making boon corruption apply a condition that have a significant effect on defiant foes shouldn't be asking for to much, the same goes for asking for weapon skills that drain health to be able to deal critical hits).Could ANet inflate necromancer's numbers to a competitive level? Yes, that's their specialty after all, however, the large amount of health points of the necromancer will remain a barrier to such thing because the other profession's playerbase isn't wrong in being adverse to it. I understand that there's always a next best thing ... what I like to see is that these kind of things rotate far more often. Because ANet is so incredibly focused on creating more and more content, it is imo VERY bad in keeping the different playstyles and balance interesting. At the very moment you see only a few major balance updates in a year, mostly not changing a lot at all. The balance in this game is far from perfect, but they don't seem to strive to it either. And that's what annoys me. Imo, you can win a lot of players back (a few years ago I would say, you can keep a lot of players interested), if you deliberately change skills, playstyles, META, etc. FAR more often. And you don't even have to worry that much about fitting the theme, you can do that with clever communication (read: marketing). I mean, just a few posts ago in this thread, theme was mentioned around Reaper having a lot of surplus Precision. If one stat clearly doesn't fit in the Reaper theme at all, it would be Precision imo, where Ferocity would fit far better in it, right? And there are far more examples like that. Again, ANet is not at all that great in fitting to their own themes. So, imo that shouldn't be a hurdle! For me, new content is nice, but far more regular balance updates would get me playing a LOT more! And would make me want to invest in the game as well again, which I'm not doing anymore for a while now. I’d hate that (I couldn’t keep playing GW2 if something like that would happen). I don’t really want things to change often, and I want the things I enjoy to stay. For many people balance patches are a huge stress, and I think what you are suggesting would be mostly hated by our community (most people I met in game for sure would hate that). Hmm, I understand, and you're definitely entitled to your opinion, and I guess quite a few more people have that opinion as well. But I know for sure that there are also quite a few people out there that would like to see ANet spicing it up a little. I mean, look at the upcoming patch: a whole lot of nearly nothing is coming our way again, except for maybe the shade changes ... which is literally a revert to what it used to be ... I mean, if that's THE most exciting thing this entire patch has to offer ... well, that says more than enough, right?!I for one am very displeased with these incredibly low effort underwhelmed patches. And if we would get them every few weeks or so, I'd say, ok it's fine, at some stage things will change. But it's about only 4 in a year. No wonder Necro is your most useless pick in the PvE endgame since .... well ... 2012, really. Very small delta, very large interval ... only means one thing: NO REAL CHANGE!In other words, this must be the best game you've ever played, right?! But we're not all like that! I'd like to see at least some actual change every now and then!Yes, from my point of view this is the “best” (what I enjoyed the most) game I’ve ever played, even if there are many things I dislike (almost every profession which is not a Necromancer, for example). It is something entirely subjective. Necromancer changed a lot since 2012 and it is now much more useful. It is also far more accepted in groups. I’m comfortable staying in what maybe most people consider the bottom, if the bottom is what we have now in PvE. I don’t need constant changes in the “environment”, I can change and also find my balance, if the environment is not too chaotic.

Maybe if you do bosses that are not vg and do some mechanics you will notice that it almost never dies. It only dies if its attacked directly which just doesnt really happen.Old signet trait had some uses in pve, new one just wont get picked in instanced content. No dps buff for necro means another 4months without dps necro in any half decent group. I guess we have to wait for new elite specs. Weaver will get its place back into raid meta and becomes even stronger in fractals. Hi. There are also several Fractals where it often dies, and some Strike Missions. Fights where blood fiend tends to die:Raids: vg and sab, at dhuum at 10%Fractals: none unless you group does so low dps that mobs dont die so they end up killing the fiend, which if you are using a signet build, you probably are doing low dpsStrikes: whisper because all minions die at 75 and 25%, still a better pick than vamp signet because you have to range boss at 25% . Cold war and polar bears are more optimal not to run fiend because it tends to pull agro from the group, but they do not die. The polar bear hammer smash it once, and stare at it in confusion. All other strikes, no issues.As someone who does all the raid t4 fractals and strikes on necro because I enjoy the class flavor, and have the logs to prove it, this is pretty much the experience i have. You show your ignorance on the subject by thinking (and writing) that someone could be doing low DPS cause he is using a “signet build”. A “signet build” can have less than 5% less potential DPS (compared to the Close to Death build), and even higher “initial burst” (higher DPS when the enemy is above 50% Health Points). Anyway, I don’t use a signet build. I change things in the build based on the encounter and the group I’m playing with, and my DPS is always very high. I don’t have to stay range for the last phase of Whisper of Jormag, I put my Flesh Wurm to block the white globes. If you want to play Reaper at Boneskinner, a “signet build” is the most optimal build there (for both DPS and survivability), and I have yet to see someone doing more DPS than me there (cause the “average level” is “quite low”, even in 250+ LI groups, obviously not because Reaper DPS is higher, it is not).

The problem is that there is high probability that there will always be a "next in line" mandatory thing unless every profession can provide the rigorously the same things. For some people this would spell the end of "diversity" and possibly "thematic". The truth is that in 2013 to 2014 fire fields and blast were "mandatory" because they were the main source of might for your party and any field that came polluting the fire fields were frowned upon. Then until HoT, the superiority of elementalist's conjured weapons (mainly bow and GS but also hammer) followed that. After HoT release we had mesmer's quickness/alacrity and shared blurr (with chrono) along with Druid load of shared % damage increase and Warrior's banner. Chrono lost shared blurr while guardian and revenant came contending on quickness and alacrity. Druid exchanged some of it's increased of damage for might while warrior's banner lost a bit of power. Scourge tried it's luck at sharing it's "2nd health bar" with barrier. (note that it's not an exhaustive list, since I don't mention things like projectile reflexion/block or stealth) There will always be a "next in line" and ANet need to add new things to keep their players away from boredom. The main issue of the necromancer remain that it's design and the design of it's tools is not PvE friendly. Managing foes's boons isn't a thing in PvE for numerous reasons (nor should it be a thing). ANet still struggle with the concept of conditions being a slow ramping damaging mean (and it's especially true in PvE). A mean of damage that doesn't deal critical hits when critical hits allow you to increase the damage of a hit by x4 and proc a few effects just can't be competitive in PvE (even if it heal). And conditions effects being mostly negated by a mechanism in PvE don't help in any way either. As for the poor ability to deal with hard CC in compensation of a high amount of health points, this is the icing on the cake.Is there a way around to fix all that? Like you said, that wouldn't be an easy feat at all. Could ANet do some things that would soothe a bit all these issue? Yes and no, soothing all the issues is an impossible task, however making some of them less of a pain shouldn't be that difficult (making boon corruption apply a condition that have a significant effect on defiant foes shouldn't be asking for to much, the same goes for asking for weapon skills that drain health to be able to deal critical hits).Could ANet inflate necromancer's numbers to a competitive level? Yes, that's their specialty after all, however, the large amount of health points of the necromancer will remain a barrier to such thing because the other profession's playerbase isn't wrong in being adverse to it. I understand that there's always a next best thing ... what I like to see is that these kind of things rotate far more often. Because ANet is so incredibly focused on creating more and more content, it is imo VERY bad in keeping the different playstyles and balance interesting. At the very moment you see only a few major balance updates in a year, mostly not changing a lot at all. The balance in this game is far from perfect, but they don't seem to strive to it either. And that's what annoys me. Imo, you can win a lot of players back (a few years ago I would say, you can keep a lot of players interested), if you deliberately change skills, playstyles, META, etc. FAR more often. And you don't even have to worry that much about fitting the theme, you can do that with clever communication (read: marketing). I mean, just a few posts ago in this thread, theme was mentioned around Reaper having a lot of surplus Precision. If one stat clearly doesn't fit in the Reaper theme at all, it would be Precision imo, where Ferocity would fit far better in it, right? And there are far more examples like that. Again, ANet is not at all that great in fitting to their own themes. So, imo that shouldn't be a hurdle! For me, new content is nice, but far more regular balance updates would get me playing a LOT more! And would make me want to invest in the game as well again, which I'm not doing anymore for a while now. I’d hate that (I couldn’t keep playing GW2 if something like that would happen). I don’t really want things to change often, and I want the things I enjoy to stay. For many people balance patches are a huge stress, and I think what you are suggesting would be mostly hated by our community (most people I met in game for sure would hate that).

Maybe if you do bosses that are not vg and do some mechanics you will notice that it almost never dies. It only dies if its attacked directly which just doesnt really happen.Old signet trait had some uses in pve, new one just wont get picked in instanced content. No dps buff for necro means another 4months without dps necro in any half decent group. I guess we have to wait for new elite specs. Weaver will get its place back into raid meta and becomes even stronger in fractals. Hi. There are also several Fractals where it often dies, and some Strike Missions.

We don’t need that. I want PvE to stay as peaceful as possible, I’m here cause I was attracted by the philosophy of that game and I don’t want it to change.

Lets disregard the point that every class has a "supportive trait line" and it's impossible to make every class viable at doing so. So its important that we make necros be able to do this even if that ruins the game mode for pvp and wvw. At the same time less disregard the fact that there are plenty of other support specs that are far under performing that even if we buffed them it wouldn't have the same chilling effect as this change. Lets also disregard the fact that at least necro already has builds and roles in pvp and wvw on other specs, yet some of those other classes that have under perfoming support trait lines don't have any roles at all under any specs. I have a threshold for what I consider “viable” far lower than most people I read here. Making every support Elite Spec “viable” is definitely possible and I hope every profession can get that. I don’t want them to become what people consider “META”. You are just pushing for “low quality balance”, and that don’t benefit anyone. “Problems” can be solved, it just requires to not be too superficial.