Why PVE necros can't have nice things

[Puck.3697]

4 minutes ago, Shadowmoon.7986 said:

That is after torment and soul barbs change, i was talking about the pre pof nerf changes that removed whirled projectiles and poison stacks from death spiral. 

Aah I see. 

I'd prolly put this down to more that reaper was supposed to be a power based dps, not condi, and to stack ofcourse the playstyle it required even In the post was seen as a positive one. 

I wouldn't rly put it down to p2w expac buying. Although reaper could do with some changes given how far its falling. 

[xavios.3601]

And here we see the reason why, despite the sheer age of my account, I have so little forum presence. 
People don't think before they hit "submit." 
Original Necro condi DPS was actually alright. I dont recall it being "best in the game," but Blood is Power was stronger back then. What it lacked in sustained condi DPS at times, it definitely had in burst DPS. So, situationally a PVP thing, but usually not that drastic. It was good enough that, even during HoT we had base Necro Shroud builds that were competitive with power DPS, and still brought Shroud utility. 
Reaper Shroud was very good for both power and condi DPS. Shroud 1 was absolutely stupid in the fact that it could 1) Burn or Might, 2) Vuln, 3) Death Perception was 100% crit chance in Shroud. It got nerfed for good reason. Single button DPS was very good by HoT metrics. Again, not best in the game, but more than good enough for content clearing. This was beside the point that you could roll with Valk or Marauder gear for extra survivability, and still have 100% crit chance in Shroud. Dhuumfire's burn was, for a time, Necro's only requirement for doing sufficient condi DPS. 
I dont play Scourge, so I wont comment on it. Haven't played Harb yet (just returned after a couple years so Im behind on the experience of playing many E-Specs).

 

  

23 hours ago, Daddy.8125 said:

Aah I see. 

I'd prolly put this down to more that reaper was supposed to be a power based dps, not condi, and to stack ofcourse the playstyle it required even In the post was seen as a positive one. 

I wouldn't rly put it down to p2w expac buying. Although reaper could do with some changes given how far its falling. 

 

It has always been able to perform both roles. It can even do support through healing/revive on Shroud 4 (which for a while was BETTER than base Necro's Shroud 4, due to the amount of ticks. Dont know if that's still true.) 
I would definitely say that a Necro main would have much more available to them if they got HoT. Reaper is a very good E-Spec. Of course there are times it wont be the top choice out of all classes (if there even is a time anymore when Reaper is #1). But, what you have with Reaper is well worth the sale price on HoT in my opinion. Necro greatsword is a bit of a meme, but at least you can pretty much guarantee open world PVE kills on any veteran or lower with Shroud 5>Shroud 4>Shroud 3>GraveDigger. While having Stab and access to fear/defiance break at that. Im aware other classes can do the same, however the ease of use of that small rotation makes it very accessible. 

I doubt that the expected 20-22k power DPS with Shroud rotation would put it far enough behind other options, that you cant clear with it. Especially considering that most fights I see on YT with meters enabled, have people at 15-18k throughout the fight. At the least, its still fine for clearing. 

So, and this is to everyone, please remember that clearing is not the same as the DPS race for #1. You don't have to be #1 to clear. You have to clear the content to get the loot. You don't get better loot for your position in the meter. Anet is probably never going to change or buff things because it's not #1 on meters.

You also get Chronomancer/DareDevil/Berserker, just to name a few of the HoT E-Specs that do wonders for their classes.

Edited June 19, 2022 by xavios.3601

[Dadnir.5038]

25 minutes ago, xavios.3601 said:

People don't think before they hit "submit." 
Original Necro condi DPS was actually alright. I dont recall it being "best in the game," but Blood is Power was stronger back then. What it lacked in sustained condi DPS at times, it definitely had in burst DPS. So, situationally a PVP thing, but usually not that drastic. It was good enough that, even during HoT we had base Necro Shroud builds that were competitive with power DPS, and still brought Shroud utility. 
Reaper Shroud was very good for both power and condi DPS. Shroud 1 was absolutely stupid in the fact that it could 1) Burn or Might, 2) Vuln, 3) Death Perception was 100% crit chance in Shroud. It got nerfed for good reason. Single button DPS was very good by HoT metrics. Again, not best in the game, but more than good enough for content clearing. This was beside the point that you could roll with Valk or Marauder gear for extra survivability, and still have 100% crit chance in Shroud. Dhuumfire's burn was, for a time, Necro's only requirement for doing sufficient condi DPS. 

You do have either a terrible memory or you're forgetting a few things.

- Original condi necro: I read vanilla condi necromancer. It had the slowest condi ramp up of all professions and conditions were caped at 25 stacks. To put it simply in the vanilla PvE game conditions builds weren't viable and necromancer with it's slowest ramp up was actually one of the worst pick for a condi build.

- Blood is power: The skill have never been stronger than it is now. Never.

- The only instance core condi necromancer actually managed to be played in HoT end game was when some players abused lich's ability to spawn jagged horror combined with the ability to actually keep up these jagged horrors through healing and the heavy use of some environmental mushroom reseting CD.

- Death perception have never given 100% crit chance while in shroud. The maximum it ever gave is 50%. To be fair, taking death perception in HoT's earliest days was probably the biggest waste of trait someone could do. Fury was granted as a boon for 20% critical chance. Then Furious demise in curse magic for 180 precision or 8.57% crit chance. Target the weak for at least 20% crit chance. and decimate defense for 50% crit chance (because 25 vuln stacks on a both is basically granted). All this working both in shroud and out of shroud. Why the heck would you take death perception instead of dhuumfire on top of that at this time? (worse, even strike damage builds were taking dhuumfire instead of death perception because nobody actually cared for survivability at all. It was an era where you were going all out for damage and if you couldn't provide group support on top of that you were simply kicked out). Death perception started to show some value for reaper in august 2018 when they added the ferocity (already 1 year into PoF). I wouldn't say that death perception got nerfed in the process, it might have lost 17% crit chance while in shroud (absolutely negligible loss) but it gained 20% crit damage in the process.

- Dhuumfire was merely providing burn damage worth the amount of bleed damage you were losing while in shroud. There was a good reason burn focused runes were never used on reaper. It was either rune of the kraith or runes of the nightmare.

 

NB: Marauder gear is one of the best gear possible when it come to crit chance no matter which profession you play.

[Puck.3697]

23 hours ago, xavios.3601 said:

I doubt that the expected 20-22k power DPS with Shroud rotation would put it far enough behind other options, that you cant clear with it. Especially considering that most fights I see on YT with meters enabled, have people at 15-18k throughout the fight. At the least, its still fine for clearing. 

So, and this is to everyone, please remember that clearing is not the same as the DPS race for #1. You don't have to be #1 to clear. You have to clear the content to get the loot. You don't get better loot for your position in the meter. Anet is probably never going to change or buff things because it's not #1 on meters.

You also get Chronomancer/DareDevil/Berserker, just to name a few of the HoT E-Specs that do wonders for their classes

I've cleared Raids with a few players managing under 10k dps before in dps spots. I'm very aware contents clearable and have stated this many times. It's been done with a raid of level 76 core proffessions by teapot on stream. 

However:

Reaper was forseen by the population to being all that strong in HoT, and alot of people know this. Lots of people would not want reapers in their groups. That doesn't make em bad, or not viable. That just means they weren't among mets choice or had much demand surrounding. 

And scourge prior the torment and condi patch was again stated many times over to being bad, yes it wasn't bad and it defiantly was a good pick. But it wasn't forseen to be meta and lots of players demand based on meta. That doesn't mean guilds weren't letting their guildies play it. Or statics cared about the situation. 

However that doesn't change the statement. 

Condi  reaperin HoT depended on Ice fields and severe conditions to realistically meet the dps benchmark in a realistic fight. It wasn't a relevant playstyle as the conditions to play such was rarely met. 

And scourges power house in pve only came to light after the buffs. People refused to acknowledge the specc prior that by the pug community. 

And several sites will show yoy the trends of proffessions played in raid and fractal content. And it was almost entirely power dominated statistically prior that patch which led to 86% of rhe entirity of fractal runs being done had a scourge in it. 

What's viable. And what's used, are far different conversations. As far more players PuG content then do it among a raid or static circle meaning the vast majority are abiding by PuG rule sets. 

And yes core necro back in core game could clear content. However it was considered a meme. There's a literal song that was sung dedicated about necros being left behind and coming back with reaper. 

This game barely requires 20% of the dps these proffessions are capable of. Ofcourse everything's viable. Because the content easy mode lol. 

The games vastly over power crept and too many proffessions faceroll content. The game isn't challenging. Therefore everything's viable. 

Pve conversation discussing viability, is worthless for this reason realistically. The game doesn't push meta requirements, the game doesn't demand your remotely close to dps potentials. It doesnt need rotations. 

Basic auto attacking is above the requirements the game has regarding dps. And that's the reason necros and others don't get "nice things"

Because it isn't needed, the game demands aren't high enough for rebalancing to be a requirement. 

There's no point discussing the minimum or "viability" because eveey raid in the game is doable with no other dps ability other then a auto attack. 

Which means the "but its still viable" a ultimate cop out answer in this circumstance. The only arguable measurement is what is "best". As that's the only argument worth a dime.

I will also say, reading a dps meter isn't enough knowledge to know. I've had fights finish at 20k dps, yet clicked on it to reliese I've spiked to 50k several times.

You would need to look into breakdowns inside the interface to rly see how much dmg was done. 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Daddy.8125

[ZDragon.3046]

23 hours ago, xavios.3601 said:

And here we see the reason why, despite the sheer age of my account, I have so little forum presence. 
People don't think before they hit "submit." 
Original Necro condi DPS was actually alright. I dont recall it being "best in the game," but Blood is Power was stronger back

 

In truth it was never "alright."

Most of the time it was a meta or decent choice was due to people using exploits that anet didn't account for. The moment all those exploits got patched it died. So consider this in addition to basically everything else Dadnir told you already.

Even to this day necro is still one of the slowest to ramp con condi dps even to this day. Some how anet has manged to keep true to their goal of having necro always be on the slower side when it comes to everything it does despite being lathered in quickness lol. 

Edited June 20, 2022 by ZDragon.3046

[anbujackson.9564]

1 hour ago, ZDragon.3046 said:

 

Even to this day necro is still one of the slowest to ramp con condi dps even to this day. Some how anet has manged to keep true to their goal of having necro always be on the slower side when it comes to everything it does despite being lathered in quickness lol. 

Scourge burst opener isnt that bad, I dont know what you mean. Of course its not on the level of a spec that focusses on burning. 

[ZDragon.3046]

3 hours ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

Scourge burst opener isnt that bad, I dont know what you mean. Of course its not on the level of a spec that focusses on burning. 

not bad but still on the slow side in comparison to almost every other condition option. 

Even harbinger is pretty quick but not as quick as other condition options that mainly focus on a singular condition. 

Thats what ends up making necro's conditional ramp speed slower than the other professions. The fact that its usually spaced out over 2 -3 different conditions rather than just focusing on a singular condition. 

Nothing is wrong with this i just thought its something that should be pointed out. 

[Axl.8924]

On 6/19/2022 at 4:48 PM, xavios.3601 said:

And here we see the reason why, despite the sheer age of my account, I have so little forum presence. 
People don't think before they hit "submit." 
Original Necro condi DPS was actually alright. I dont recall it being "best in the game," but Blood is Power was stronger back then. What it lacked in sustained condi DPS at times, it definitely had in burst DPS. So, situationally a PVP thing, but usually not that drastic. It was good enough that, even during HoT we had base Necro Shroud builds that were competitive with power DPS, and still brought Shroud utility. 
Reaper Shroud was very good for both power and condi DPS. Shroud 1 was absolutely stupid in the fact that it could 1) Burn or Might, 2) Vuln, 3) Death Perception was 100% crit chance in Shroud. It got nerfed for good reason. Single button DPS was very good by HoT metrics. Again, not best in the game, but more than good enough for content clearing. This was beside the point that you could roll with Valk or Marauder gear for extra survivability, and still have 100% crit chance in Shroud. Dhuumfire's burn was, for a time, Necro's only requirement for doing sufficient condi DPS. 
I dont play Scourge, so I wont comment on it. Haven't played Harb yet (just returned after a couple years so Im behind on the experience of playing many E-Specs).

 

  

 

It has always been able to perform both roles. It can even do support through healing/revive on Shroud 4 (which for a while was BETTER than base Necro's Shroud 4, due to the amount of ticks. Dont know if that's still true.) 
I would definitely say that a Necro main would have much more available to them if they got HoT. Reaper is a very good E-Spec. Of course there are times it wont be the top choice out of all classes (if there even is a time anymore when Reaper is #1). But, what you have with Reaper is well worth the sale price on HoT in my opinion. Necro greatsword is a bit of a meme, but at least you can pretty much guarantee open world PVE kills on any veteran or lower with Shroud 5>Shroud 4>Shroud 3>GraveDigger. While having Stab and access to fear/defiance break at that. Im aware other classes can do the same, however the ease of use of that small rotation makes it very accessible. 

I doubt that the expected 20-22k power DPS with Shroud rotation would put it far enough behind other options, that you cant clear with it. Especially considering that most fights I see on YT with meters enabled, have people at 15-18k throughout the fight. At the least, its still fine for clearing. 

So, and this is to everyone, please remember that clearing is not the same as the DPS race for #1. You don't have to be #1 to clear. You have to clear the content to get the loot. You don't get better loot for your position in the meter. Anet is probably never going to change or buff things because it's not #1 on meters.

You also get Chronomancer/DareDevil/Berserker, just to name a few of the HoT E-Specs that do wonders for their classes.

 I was around in 2017 and i was getting denied and even screamed at for even thinking of doing a raid as a reaper, it was like HOW DARE YOU play a necromancer and try to raid go play something else so don't tell folks its not that bad. Its true stuff has improved but even so If you give someone the choice between a straight line that avoids deadly pitfalls and traps or the pitfall and trap ridden long path more often than not people will choose what is also the shortest and path of least resistance so that is why.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Axl.8924

[Banryuu.2156]

On 3/16/2022 at 11:06 AM, MagicalSilence.1837 said:

completely remade the skill into something new

It could be spreading conditions but only in a pulsing aoe range like some kind of well. It will transfer the same amount of condis from the boss to 10 enemies in 600 range.

[xavios.3601]

On 6/30/2022 at 12:51 AM, Axl.8924 said:

 I was around in 2017 and i was getting denied and even screamed at for even thinking of doing a raid as a reaper, it was like HOW DARE YOU play a necromancer and try to raid go play something else so don't tell folks its not that bad. Its true stuff has improved but even so If you give someone the choice between a straight line that avoids deadly pitfalls and traps or the pitfall and trap ridden long path more often than not people will choose what is also the shortest and path of least resistance so that is why.

 

RS1 was ALWAYS very good. Was one of the few shroud skills that enabled RS to have overall consistent DPS. I think it was something like 15-18k just from RS1 with a good group (maintaining might and fury).
Sure, again not the best in the game. But more than sufficient for clearing, if you properly play LF generation. The only bad thing about Reaper for power DPS, is that Gravedigger spam was garbage DPS (probably still is), so the intended "execute phase" DPS was hardly worth writing home about. Was only about 12-13k due to the sheer cast time. 
 

I got my raid clears on PS War and RS Necro. Your raid group was wrong. 

Edited July 2, 2022 by xavios.3601

[Kaladel.1670]

8 hours ago, xavios.3601 said:

Sure, again not the best in the game. But more than sufficient for clearing

 

PUGs only care about the first part, not the second. And Reaper brings nothing to others, it's pure DPS.
So, when there are better dps who also brings some valuable boons on the table, who would take a Reaper? It's the little fat kid that's always picked last.
Even Snowcrows doesn't have a build for Reaper, that's a bad sign.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Kaladel.1670

[TheGrill.4896]

8 hours ago, Kaladel.1670 said:

PUGs only care about the first part, not the second. And Reaper brings nothing to others, it's pure DPS.
So, when there are better dps who also brings some valuable boons on the table, who would take a Reaper? It's the little fat kid that's always picked last.
Even Snowcrows doesn't have a build for Reaper, that's a bad sign.

It had a build up for Reaper a few days ago. It is probably just getting updated which is stated on the site.

[Rhingeim.3974]

Some recent discussion in engineer subforum actually made me think about one thing. 

There is an opinion, that mechanist power (and mech especially), comes from tradeoffs happened when picking Mech over toolbelt. Around 27 skill options over 9 from mech. So  to compensate such compression, mech skills often not only bring damage, but can give conditions, boons etc. 

 

This point can be a nice base for ANet to revisit a lot of necromancer traits both from core and all elite specs. Like add minions buffs here and there. Add boons to some skills from shrouds or weapons. Basically revisited necromancer idea according to current design vision. 

[Wintermute.5408]

Well, with the last balance patch, all the discord pre-drama, warhorn "rework", and the glorious reaper nerf yet again, I think I got the answer to the topic title. Hey, at least we aren't warriors I guess.

I was genuinely wondering why, for example, Harbinger design completely disregarded existence of all the necro fear traits, or Unholy sanctuary for example. Now I know.