Dadnir.5038

I think this thread belong to the necromancer's subforum. Personally, I'm not really interested by a "big pet" for the necromancer. On another hand I'd like to see some kind of "fantasms" in the necromancer's kit. Etheral pet that last a few seconds which would be enough to trigger death magic's necromantic corruption, do whatever effect it's supposed to do with the possibility to be killed by the foe and finally disappear potentially triggering Death nova. (Shot lasting active skills with both counterplay and synergy with core traits that would scale on the necromancer's stats... That's what I want as "minions" for the necromancer) Edit: And to make it even more fun, those skills could even have an LF cost which would then refounded partially or totally (based on vitality/traits combination) upon the death/disappearance of the "minion".

Initiative is fine as it is, it's a part of the identity of thief that I, personally, wouldn't want the game to lose. On another hand I think stealth, revealed and stealth attack could all afford some work. Stealth is to "absolute" and lack drawbacks. Revealed is boring, it's neither a condition nor a boon and it lack support from traits for how easy the thief can produce it on himself. Stealth attack is plain toxic, most of the time it's a dangerously strong attack with no tell and only have "experience" as a counterplay.

I do think that the OP do have a point as CC are annoying and ranged CC are even more annoying. That said, whether or not necromancer and mesmer are the worst offender is hard to say. Vile blast might seem strong to the OP but, objectively, it's relatively average for a CC in the game.

My comment put into light the fact that the devs balance around budgets (something they clearly stated). The sustain budget is built around many active and passive effects that actually healp the character survive a fight. If one want to be unkillable as a ranger in WvW, all the tools are there to use. In fact it's been done by players many time since game release. Protection and weakness reduce incoming damage, you can't possibly deny this simple fact. Block, strike damage immunity and evade nullify incoming damage, again you can't deny such simple fact. Barrier and self-heal are sustain tools that do help you survive and ranger do have those in it's toolkit. Stealth is the main survival tool of the thief and yet you seem reject the idea that ranger can actually use it to survive as well. Hard CC prevent your foes from hitting you. Gap opener prevent a foes from spanking you at melee range. The pet can take damage for you either through shout or simply by body blocking. ... etc. I am no basing my argument around Hammer specifically. Hammer is indeed a good defensive weapon when used with survivability in mind. I'm not saying that hammer is equal to reaper. I'm saying that necromancer only rely on health points, weakness and protection to survive and that the majority of the playerbase still find them hard to kill. The ranger have access to all those tools and more. As to "how ranger go on the defensive?", that actually requiert a conscious effort from the player that control the character. Something you seldom find nowaday, which might be why you haven't seen anyone doing it. Long time ago, we called people doing such a thing "skilled players".

So does that mean that without the health sacrifice the Sword/Sword set is supposed to be half a Greatsword? Because that's effectively what it is right now. If damage is the purpose then it should give a substancial advantage in damage output over weapons that do not sacrifice anything. So, no, damage isn't the purpose. The truth is that the health sacrifice do have a purpose but this purpose is difficult to accept. The health sacrifice solely exist to mitigate the inate sustain brought by the Sword/Sword skillset.

The issue isn't the damage. The issue is that the health sacrifice lack purpose.

In term of support the necromancer have always been an oddball in the game. That's why we got an abomination like the harbinger's spec introduced in the game. Personally, more than having weapons with some amount of support, I'd prefer to have minions providing group support via their active skills (even if it mean that the damage generated by those minions would be reduced). First I'd make some change to the Minions active skills: Taste of death: Now grant Regeneration to the necromancer on top of healing. Rigor mortis: This skill have been reworked. It now sacrifice the bone fiend to create an area lasting a few seconds that cripple foes periodically. This skill also grant Resistance to the necromancer. Putrid explosion: The damage dealt by this skill have been significantly reduced but the skill now daze foes within it's area of effect and grant Aegis on use to the necromancer. Necrotic traversal: Now grant Swiftness to the necromancer on top of it's previous effects. Haunt: Now, the shadow fiend is desroyed upon reaching it's target and the necromancer gain Resolution. Charge: The flesh golem is destroyed upon dealing the final strike and the necromancer gain Stability. Then the traits: Flesh of the master and Necromantic corruption: Those 2 traits are merged into the new Adept trait Flesh of corruption. Flesh of corruption: Gain carapace for each minion you control. Minion drain conditions from you and transfert them on succesful attacks (10s ICD per minion) New trait: Furious wish: Minions active skills now also grant fury and share their boons within a 360 radius. Death nova: This trait now also share might when you or a minion are downed. Vampiric: This trait no longer let your minions siphon life for you whenever they hit a foe. Instead, when you or one of your minions is downed/sacrificed, create a life force nova that heal allies within the radius.

As stupid as it may be, the jade bot is the answer to your question.

Lingering curse make those ideas OP. Also you seem to forget that Scepter do have an advantage over pistol in competitive modes as none of the scepter's skills are projectiles.

I still wonder why they didn't reduced this damage reduction in competitive modes like they did in PvE.

Why do people AFK? Toilet. Snack/drink. Falling asleep. Baby crying. Kid got hurt. Kid unleashed it's "artistic talent" at home. Kid need some scolding. Kid want to watch something specific on TV. Hungry kid. Phone (95% of the time it's someone trying to sell something). Someone ringing the doorbell (95% of the time it's someone trying to sell something). Boss wondering if it's employee is doing it's job. Colleagues coming to ask something. Customer bringing some work time. ... etc.

I don't think it would be even close to be a "fight".

They certainly will tweak numbers but not necessarily in a way that let the player feel that the "sacrifice" is worth it. The point is that swords is going to be balanced in such a way that they hoover between being a sustain skillset and an offensive skillset. There is 3 targets to the balance of the weaponset: Using all skills should make the weaponset competitive damage wise with other necromancer's weaponsets. (Currently the damage output is a bit lower than what would be expected of a necromancer's weaponset) Not using sacrifice should make the sustain of the weaponset competitive with the necromancer's weaponsets that focus on sustain. (Currently the sustain output is significantly higher than what would be expected from a necromancer's weaponset) There is a need for an equilibrium between sustain and health sacrifice. (Currently the sustain offset the sacrifice by a confortable margin) As such it wouldn't be surprising to see the devs slightly increase the damage output of the weaponset while reducing it's sustain output in a futur balance patch. "Number tweaks".

A synergy of risks with no synergy of rewards... Wonderful!

I won't comment on everything because I do think this single quote most of the things you easily dismiss for other skills/weapon. So here we go: "Necromancer's whole defensive system revolve around those few things that you dismiss in this single weaponset and yet the playerbase tend to find them to meaty." The point is that ranger is packed full with defensive tools (objectively the ranger have already more of those than most professions, it's only somewhat lacking when facing conditions). Whether those tools are used by the player with the specific purpose of defense or offense isn't a problem of balance or lack of readily available tools but a problem of player gameplay. As it stand, even if the devs where to put more defensive tools into the ranger's skill kit, the player would still favor the offensive tools or the use of those tools to increase their offensive potential.

It really depend on what you mean by "survivability"... From my point of view: Greatsword: a 1000 range leap with an evade frame baked in, a block and 2 hard CC. Hammer: a few barrier sources, some CC as well as protection/weakness to reduce incoming damage. Longbow: stealth and a gap opener. Shortbow: an evade frame as well as control effects. Staff: Movement, sustain, protection, projectile hate and control effect. Axes: Weakness, projectile hate and control. Daggers: Slow (MH), Evade frame (OH) and control (OH) Maces: Sustain, control, barrier and defensive boons Sword: an evade frame and some amount of control. Warhorn: weakness and control Torch: nothing 😉 Then there are the utilities: Shout: "Guard!", "Protect me!" Signet: Signet of stone. Survival: Lightning reflexes Spirit: Stone spirit (AoE blind), Sun spirit (Aegis) Stance: Dolyak stance, Griffon stance. Cantrip: Forest's fortification. Without forgeting the beast skills for soulbeast: General: Unflinching fortitude Devourer: Devourer retreat Smokescale: Smoke assault Bear: Defy pain

As a player you see this mechanic in a risk/reward perspective, but you're wrong, there is nothing like that involved in this mechanic. The mechanic is simply a "fun factor", it only exist to add some flavor within the thematic of the necromancer in such a way that it stir the inner fantasy of the playerbase and thus rekindle it's "passion" for the game (which would hopefully lead them to invest money into the gem store).

I think elementalist have too many attunments nerf it!

On a base 1000 power your reasoning about power is right. Adding 300 power to 1000 is equivalent to a 30% increase. On a base 3500 power (which the character will have on a strike damage build) your reasoning about power is wrong. Adding 300 power to 3500 is equivalent to a 8.5% increase. Keep in mind that if you take fire traitline in your build it will be then 3650 base power and the impact of the 300 extra power will be reduced even further. The more power you have the lesser the impact of the fire magic traitline's power difference.

This isn't how it work. 300 power amount to 8.5% of the power a zerk build without infusions would have without fire attunment equiped in optimal fighting conditions (25 might stacks).

I got a 5 year old nefew and he understand only the thing that he is willing to understand if the explanation fit with his own ideas. So, based on the title of your thread I guess you just want other players to tell you that the devs don't know anything about the reality of the game and balance. I hope you're satisfied with this answer.

It's not a matter of "need", it's a matter of how the community think. Until 2019/2020 the PvE community mentality was focused on the concept that the most optimal way to complete the content was through dps. It took a lot of effort to shift this way of thinking. Keep in mind that we are in 2024, you're talking about 40k dps potential as if it's a matter of fact while a few years ago the average dps potential was closer to 32k dps (that's a 20% dps difference which is like not having quickness while most CD have been reduced over the years so not having alacrity isn't much different). In the vanilla game, core necromancer was seen as a bother, it was slow in mobility, had slow ramping conditions, low strike damage output and virtually 0 support ability. Worse, if he wanted to deal any damage, more often than not it was at the cost of hindering might build for the whole team. Sure, you could complete the content just fine with necromancer I've done it, and other players did it just fine but in term of "PvE reputation" necromancer was rock bottom along with ranger (they were the only 2 professions that had a bad enough reputation to be kicked on sight from narrow minded group). Reaper at it's release in 2015 brought great quality of life to the necromancer but it didn't have any in built support, couldn't tank due to a lack of stability and it's best dps built barely dealt 2/3rd of the dps potential of the top damage dealer. You could say that boon rip was it's advantage but Mesmer which quickly became the meta support had boon rip on it's Auto attack. Again, you could complete the content with the necromancer without much issue but few were willing to take a character that didn't contribute much in their group or raid. That's 6 years of having the reputation of being a burden in PvE. And it's a reputation that continued on even with scourge at it's release. The spec quickly got the "rez bot" label and most relegated it to raid training groups. It got a few months of glory when a few players promoted the full potential of epidemic that requiered many necromancers to coordinate each other in order to bring devastating damage. It didn't suit the community and endless pleas for nerfs ended up weakening the skill to oblivion bringing back the necromancer to it's usual spot as a "burden" in the collective perception. It's only with the 2019/2020 mentality shift that LI builds start to be valued by the community, that the race for dps lost a bit of it's importance in the playerbase point of view in favor of a balance of damage output and ease to play. It's only thanks to this shift that the current perspective you have of the game is mostly accepted. Can you complete the content without Quickness and Alacrity? Of course you can. Was it possible for the whole life of the game? Sure it was, you could even complete raid encounters with only your weapons as equipement if you fancied the challenge. Did the community always accept this fact? Nope. The community is obsessed with profession popularity and the worse the community make your profession look the lower your profession's popularity. NB: the Irony is that the rise of LI builds brought the downfall of the professions that are perceived as "harder" to play despite said professions also having their own LI builds that nobody promote because ultimately people still focus on showcasing builds with top dps potential. (I'm saying "harder" because in reality top dps rotation are all equally complex, the difference in complexity between a necromancer using 2 weaponsets + his shroud and an elementalist using 3 attunments isn't as significant many want to make it, yet the prejudices are there up and alive).

That's an interesting take and I must say that I like it. Fire specialization don't grant anywhere close to 50% outgoing damage while in attunment. A 300 difference in power compared to other attunment don't have this much impact. The difference come from the skills ability to deliver damage. My own take is that Quickness and Alacrity share should be removed from all professions and tied to mutually exclusive tools granted by PvE masteries. That would help balance competitive modes since nobody would be able to share those boons there.

But Scourge was considered trash in PvE for a relatively long time. It was labeled the noob carry that you would only use for training raid. It took a lot of time and effort for the community to acknowledge anything else than going full dps in the PvE meta. The community only started to accept the fact that going full dps isn't necessarily the only way when a defensive team with Scourge at it's center got close to win a PvE raid competition.

Strictly speaking you're wrong. The use of the word "always" is inappropriate. It's true that the last 4 years have been sweet for the necromancer but before that there were many areas where the profession wasn't great. The major weak point of the necromancer have been PvE until a breakthrough late 2019 so 7 years after the release of the game (it's to the point that you would have been kicked out of most groups/raids in PvE just for playing necromancer until PoF release).