Necro changes previewed for Feb 3

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, Yasai.3549 said:

I used BB alot back when RO didn't have Quickness but now that RO does, it's like, no going back. 

Taking Dread isn't too bad but you lose Close to Death too which really sucks for damage, especially since Reaper already struggles with out of shroud damage. 

Honestly I wish they would just rework Deathly Chill. It's just not great and not consistent. Make it something like "Shroud 4 now applies Bleed stacks, attack nearby enemies when leaving Shroud, inflicting additional Bleed stacks based on Life Force threshold" 
Would instantly make Condi Reaper an actual thing. 

Yeah. Celerity and rage sigils can make up for it too. Depends on what you feel you need more. 

Deathly Chill needs a rework, agreed.

[Zex Anthon.8673]

3 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Buddy I'll dive into an RI camp to kill enemy players that think they're safe and stomp them long before the RI supervisor is ever a threat to me. Necro is only a punching bag if you let it be.

Thank you for sharing this tidbit of information. Now I know your opinion is skewed by fighting PvE'ers and camp mobs. I bet you neglect to mention all the times you are absolutely destroyed by someone on a real roaming build. Classic confirmation bias.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

47 minutes ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

Thank you for sharing this tidbit of information. Now I know your opinion is skewed by fighting PvE'ers and camp mobs. I bet you neglect to mention all the times you are absolutely destroyed by someone on a real roaming build. Classic confirmation bias.

Sure buddy. You continue letting yourself be a punching bag. I guess that is your own confirmation bias.

[Zex Anthon.8673]

8 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Sure buddy. You continue letting yourself be a punching bag. I guess that is your own confirmation bias.

Nah, I can distinguish between casual and competitive play. Something you seem to struggle with. I know Necro is very tanky, oppressively even, in low level silver tier gameplay. As soon as your opponents learn to play around shroud, you are a walking bag. 

[mandala.8507]

(This will be a PvE perspective)

It's clear necro wasn't the focus of this patch, but they still threw some bones to the class here imo. Dagger might not be "viable" as a dps weapon in a meta build, but this shores up the gameplay loop and functional utility of the weapon while allowing it to be flexed with non-condi setups. I can see a fun open world fantasy with dagger now that I really couldn't before, so that's something.

I fear that life force is becoming somewhat of a joke mechanic in the sense that it feels like you can get most if not all of your life force back pretty mindlessly, especially on reaper. The immortality fantasy of the class falls flat if it just happens without much thought. If I'm getting hit hard in shroud and eating up life force quickly, I should be punished for it and have a more difficult time getting enough life force to keep hard tanking, but it seems the game is moving away from that being the case outside of the most glassy full-dps setups.

I'm surprised at the lukewarm response to the shout changes, honestly. It seems this will really help the devs to streamline the strength of this utility type across all scenarios and we really don't know how strong they'll be when they hit live. "Chilled to the Bone!" is starting to look like a monster of an elite skill, and I'm here for it.

I get that anyone waiting for this patch to "save" the class is going to be disappointed, but I'm rather relieved necro isn't subject to the crazy balance thrashing other classes are getting hit with recently. It feels like slow, but purposeful progress is being made to get this class in a respectable spot without bulldozing over the gravitas of the various specs and build options.

Doing mad damage is nice, but not if it comes at the cost of pruning all other build paths and leaving the various traits and trailine trees to wither and die, totally neglected.

[Dr Meta.3158]

As a precursor I'll state these points before I get into the post.

1: I'll be mostly talking about Reaper because this patch is mostly aimed at Reaper and doesn't really help any other necromancer spec much at all.

2: I'm talking from a PvP perspective unless otherwise stated since competitive PvE is just a DPS arms race and is easily adjusted with numbers rather than needing full mechanical changes. Anything else in PvE is just quality of life and themes.

3: Within the PvP perspective I'm considering competitive level play of at the very least top 100. Anyone playing lower than that I can't really speak for beyond general lack of skill and knowledge which isn't an insult but a result of needing more experience.

So I already touched upon the patch in a light sense but I didn't really expand upon all the necromancer classes as a whole since this patch is mainly focused on reaper which I personally think is solidly ok. It really doesn't need much more to be effective in competitive play given that you have the skill and knowledge to execute. It won't be easy but easy makes you S tier and painted to be nerfed and we're not trying to get to there. We are trying to get to A tier where you are effective but you need to skills to execute.

 

So what was Reaper supposed to be exactly?

I first started this game with the release of heart of thorns but only played for two days before actually playing the game a few months after the release of Path of Fire. I barely remember how things were back in HoT days. I just remember the coming back to the game and thinking my account was banned from pvp since I couldn't get into (the old) pvp lobby before realizing that the entire area was just reworked like what they appeared to have done to Lion's Arch which was also before my time. A little humor for you. The point of that side story is that I can only go off of what I was told by other people to the initial design intent of Reaper which is: A "monster movie... monster that is slow and cumbersome but a force to be reckoned with if they catch you". Now Reaper as it is now is definitely not that and I'm not sure if it was ever that since it used to deal less damage and was focused on cheesy bleed builds before that got nerfed. No class really fits that description but I can see how they may have been trying to reach that description.

Reaper's main mechanic is chill which allows the whole idea of having to find ways to get into contact with players before making it so they can't escape you. Now if I'm correct, movement speed reduction used to affect leap distance before heart of thorns and changed with the launch of heart of thorns. So this narrative failed right there. Since then, mobility has risen for the later elite specs and even some core ones while Reaper has not sped up at all. Reaper has, however, received more power damage over time while losing durability over time. As Greviathan.6107 mentioned, Reaper's main issue is survivability not damage. At least in pvp whereas in pve its main issue is... both because their damage and survivability are chained together with neither being impressive especially for it not contributing anything beyond damage to a group. But that problem in PvE isn't a reaper only problem.

 

So what is Reaper supposed to be now?

I imagine Reaper, and really necromancer as a whole, is supposed to be a tank buster. With focus on weakness to space out dodges more, chill to space out defensive cooldowns more, poison to weaken regeneration, vulnerability to increase incoming damage, and corruptions/boon removals to weaken passive defenses. All necromancers have the base kit to ensure that fights end and as such all necromancers fit into the role of teamfighter since they are... not really good at anything else. That's one main issue with necromancer design in itself is that none of the necromancers vary gameplay enough from each other to explore other roles but rather they operate in a tier list of which is a better team fighter than the other and rotate around as time and patches go by. But that's a discussion for another day.

 

Since Reaper is a teamfighter, how well does it fulfill that role?

Reaper has a unique problem of all the necromancer specs in that its the only melee oriented necromancer spec with its core design being focused around keeping distance. And this is the main issue with reaper and this patch together. Reaper is essentially a warrior that cannot handle being in melee. This is remedied some by pairing reaper with a dedicated tempest or guardian support but why do that when you can slot in a self-sufficient teamfighter that can also fulfill another role or two? Willbender was a great example of fulfilling the same role as reaper while also being a roamer and if you were good enough, an ok-ish duelist. It worked really well with dedicated support, but didn't need it to do its job. So what's the main difference between willbender and reaper? Boons and mobility.

Boons are clearly the most valuable mechanic in this game. It defines every game mode and WvW as a whole was (is?) centered around the application and removal of boons with the latter getting weaker over time while the former gets stronger. Guardian as a core has a strong foundation in not only handling melee combat and having copious amounts of boons but allowing others to handle melee combat and having copious amounts of boons. This core allowed Willbender to be great as a cleave-centric teamfighter with its only elite specialization granting it great mobility on top of that solid core... So what about Reaper?

Reaper, like every other necromancer relies on conditions and this is a problem. Beyond low level play, conditions are easily shut down. Cleanse and resistance has been steadily increasing over time and while necromancer struggles to keep but, reaper relying more on non-damaging conditions, and therefore having less condition application overall, struggles to keep up. One classic matchup that was pretty even was Spellbreaker vs Reaper. If both players are highly skilled, it was only slightly favored for the spellbreaker to win. After the defense rework, Reaper stands no chance. Why? Resistance. Spellbreaker already handled conditions decently well before the defense rework but the additional resistance spam put it over time top and it wasn't a giving that matchup a more favorable outcome to spellbreaker, it made the matchup impossible for reaper. Why? Reaper cannot do anything without conditions. All of the conditions I mentioned before to allow necromancer to fulfill its overall role to end fights? Gone. But even worse for reaper. Other necromancers can at least poke from a distance. You cannot chase without chill, you cannot runaway, you cannot stand your ground, you cannot outpressure. It is a weird thing for many players to conceptualize because reaper is almost unanimously played as a power build. But again, think about willbender vs reaper. One relies on boons, one relies on conditions. Between the two mechanics, the better choice is obvious.

The secondary problem is Reaper's lack of speed. Being slow is bad in both PvP and WvW just for the issue of having smaller map presence than everyone else. The slower you are, the more of a liability you become for your team even if you were hypothetically more powerful than everyone else... which you are not... you are usually weaker AND slower AND your main mechanic to even do anything is easily countered and additionally scales in its counter against you as you face more enemies since some cleanses also cleanses allies.

So overall, you're slow, your main and specific class mechanics are easily countered and in some cases entirely invalidated by others, and you lack the power to compensate for that. Top put a nice bow on top of that, you're not durable enough to fulfill your role as a melee fighter. God help you if you have to fight a thief, you're far better off trying that matchup as a Mesmer.

 

So how do we fix this without destroying balance and design intent?

First lets revisit the theme. Reaper. What is that? First thing that comes to my mind is the grim reaper, the avatar of death. The shrouded figure with a scythe that isn't here to "cleave" crops, but here to "cleave" you. The thing that you can try to run from endlessly but it will eventually get you. But more specifically, your soul. Part of this imagine can be associated with dementors from the Harry Potter franchise especially the whole bit of all the warmth and happiness being sucked out of the area as they draw close and it becoming colder and fear settling in as they close in on you. Given that Reaper's main mechanics are chill and fear, we'll go with that.

So lets organize the themes into a concise list

1: Shroud

2: Cleaving

3: Chill

4: Fear

5: Soul Sucking

6: Slow

7: Relentless

With these 7 themes in place lets start with the traits going with a top down approach from grandmaster to adept since the grandmasters will be the major definers.

First line will be under the theme of soul sucking. Quiet, lurking, thirsting for souls

Traits

1: Blighter's Boon

Instead of gaining lifeforce and health from self generating boons might we can instead rework this to steal boons from others. Yes scourge does this, but whatever. We're a necromancer we don't bolster ourselves, we bring everyone else down below our level like a true degenerate.

"Whenever you remove or corrupt a boon, gain that boon. If you apply a boon to yourself this way, gain lifeforce. If you are in reaper's shroud, gain health instead.

1% life force

1% health"

 

2: Soul Eater

Continuing with the theme of soul sucking we will gain health by taking it from others and incentivizing to use our main mechanic as much as possible giving tradeoff options from other possible choices.

"Whenever you chill an enemy, corrupt a boon into vulnerability. Striking a foe with vulnerability within the range threshold heals you for 0.5% of your damage dealt per stack of vulnerability. This healing is halved while in shroud.

-3 stacks of vulnerability for 6 seconds"

 

3: Chilling Nova

- No changes

 

This can go under the theme of cleaving. This playstyle will focus on chasing down enemies and trying to cut them down as fast as possible.

1: Reaper's Onslaught

 

"Fear enemies near you when you enter Reaper's Shroud.  Whenever you hit with Life Reap, gain a stack of Reaper's Appetite and reduce the recharge time of shroud skills by 1 second.

-Reaper's Appetite: 5 seconds duration, maximum stacks of 5. Gain 6% attack speed for every stack. Duration of current stacks are refreshed whenever a new stack is gained."

 

2: Decimate Defenses

- No changes

 

3: Relentless Pursuit

"Gain superspeed when applying chill. Reduces duration of movement-impairing conditions while in reaper's shroud.

-Superspeed: 1 second

-Duration decrease of cripple, chill, immobilized: 50%"

 

This is can go under the theme of relentless which will be bent to encompass a being that is trying to break your will rather than being directly aggressive.

1: Deathly Chill

 

"Whenever you inflict chill, reduce the cooldown of Infusing Terror by 2 seconds. Inflicting fear gives you and allies around you alacrity.

-3 seconds of alacrity

 

2: Chilling Victory

"Chill is 20% more effective and the effects of cold shoulder now applies to allies around you." 

 

3: Augury of Death

To fit in the odd choice of shouts, we'll imagine you are announcing your presence to come collect what you are owed and giving off that chilling feeling in the air as you do so.

"Enemies hit by your shouts are also chilled. The duration is increased by 5% per target hit.

-2 second duration"

 

All the minor traits will stay the same.

 

Utilities

Reaper's shouts are an odd choice for this class, but we managed to make them fit the "Relentless" theme by tying them in with their trait name sake, Augur. One that foretells but in this case, shouting the impending doom. Anyway, the shouts.

With the new Augury of death we have some design room to play around with since shouting will chill enemies with that trait taken which is honestly the lowkey best part about "Suffer!" since the condition cleanse is very conditional. The scaling aspect of shouts are nice to go with the cleaving subtheme of reaper, but we do want a decent bottom floor of effectiveness instead of just 0. So we'll take the best shout, "Your is mine!" as inspiration. We also want the revamped shouts to allow us the means to more capitalize on getting straight into melee outside of shroud without it being suicidal.

1: Your Soul Is Mine! - Perfect, no changes

2: You Are All Weaklings! - We'll keep the weakness since that is very thematic to the name of the shout but the might can go and be replaced with a 2 second daze.

3: Nothing Can Save You! - We can take the reworked variant and add a reveal along with keeping the boons to vulnerability conversion which will pair nicely if you also take soul eater or decimate defenses.

4: Suffer! - I'm not entirely sure what to do with this skill. I have a love/hate relationship with it. Its very all or nothing. Its so good and so bad at the same time. It is also best suited for a condition based necromancer which we want to stay away from that and leave that to necromancer, scourge, and harbinger. So my best application is for the skill to copy the reaper's conditions onto enemies and then removing 2 conditions as a base and additional condition removed per target hit.  I think that would warrant a skill cooldown increase back to 20 seconds. Also remove the chill on hit; take the trait instead.

5: Rise! - The oddball out. Honestly I love this skill, I think its fantastic design and its major flaw is how squishy and slow the minions are. I would make them as fast as ranger pets and increasing their attack speed by 100% so the damage reduction effect is more consistent instead of realistically being once for 3 seconds and then gone until the cooldown is up via never hitting again or dying immediately. They don't really need to do damage, they could hit as hard as non condition Mesmer clones and be great especially paired with death magic to cover the AOE vulnerability.

6: Chilled to the Bone! - Looking at this in the patch makes me wonder if any of the shouts are actually getting a cooldown reduction in PvP since the base cooldown is 60 seconds, not 45. Anyway if the base cooldown of this skill is actually 36 seconds in PvP or even better, the PvE variant is being copied to PvP. Then we can just leave this alone. I'm a bit worried about this skill being too good honestly.

Greatsword

The final nail in the coffin. I honestly do not know if and if so, why they are trying to push dagger/warhorn onto reaper instead of making greatsword a viable weapon for melee combat. I kept warhorn in mind as a variant option when redesigning the traits, especially for deathly chill and it fitting that specific line well since its also loud like the shouts. But greatsword is the flagship weapon of reaper and so should not be a meme pick for reaper in pvp and should be the aggressive choice for reaper in pvp while dagger/warhorn can be the off/"support" set.

So greatsword's main problems are that its too slow attacking for pvp in general, has no mobility for dealing with ranged pressure, lackluster defenses for melee combat, and its one displacement skill is absolutely awful in comparison to spectral grasp which is also awful compared to magnet pull which is also awful unless cheesed with stealth. I kept the current greatsword in mind for the traits but it still needs work.

1: Auto attack chain: Needs at least a 20% faster animation and it should be ok. That and we're removing the cooldown reset to Gravedigger because...

2: Gravedigger: I'm sure almost everyone if not everyone that plays reaper hates this skill, especially in PvE. In PvP specifically it used to be the heavy hitter than you'd had to animation cancel grasping darkness to manage to hit but now its death spiral but worse in every way. So here's a neat idea Instead of its cooldown being reset when hitting a target that is under 50% hp or downed, instead it resets the cooldown of reaper shroud. This could be potentially very strong in certain situations but assumes you have the lifeforce generation to maximize this. Otherwise, it allows, in some cases, more ability to secure kills on downed players given that you're not counter pressured so much as to burn away all your lifeforce.

3: Death spiral: 600 range leap with a leap combo finisher. Should had been done years ago.

4: Nightshade: The only reason to take this weapon.

5:Grasping Darkness: Honestly would be ok as is if death spiral was a leap. Lets leave it be.

 

Reaper Shroud

1: Auto Attack: No Changes

2: Death's Charge: No changes beyond bug fixing some pathing issues.

3: Infusing Terror: No changes

4: Soul Spiral: No changes

5: Executioner's Scythe: Two major fixes. 1. It prioritizes your target if it is in range rather than prioritizing the closest target. 2. It finishes downed foes. Its thematic, its appropriate, it does no damage, its wasting a stun. It should execute.

 

 

 

That's it, this took up so much time and probably was a waste of time but whatever. The other necromancer traitlines need work as well but I'm not getting paid for this and its very likely this was indeed all a waste of time. I didn't really take pve too much into consideration, but I imagine the golem dps would decrease probably to around 34-35k but with the caveat of boosting every other dps's... dps by 15% each if you take Chilling Victory while being even more self sufficient outside of groups which I think is definitely better overall.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Dr Meta.3158

[Greviathan.6107]

2 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

3: Death spiral: 600 range leap with a leap combo finisher. Should had been done years ago.

I'd say these adjustments to the GS are more than needed, especially this one
[+1] Totally agree.
 

2 hours ago, Dr Meta.3158 said:

2:Death's Charge: No changes beyond bug fixing some pathing issues.

Yeah, I love it when DC just stuck on flat ground for no reason, the only dash and we can't even trust it to work properly.

it's a  [+1] also for the rest, you explained the situation very well and gave very good solutions IMO.

Sadly i feel like the Devs when it comes to the reaper (but also necro in general) listen only the community that has no idea how the game works and dies because they auto-attacks in yolomode against the shroud and constantly waste their active defenses for nothing (It's embarrassing to see how people start wasting dodges and active defenses against nothing only because they have dozens of them, but then they get caught by chilled to the bone without quickness).

However I have thought of an idea for a potential rework of the MH dagger that can help in PvP, WvW and PvE too.
It is of course just a concept.

Main Hand Dagger Rework Idea

What if it were a weapon that use the LF?
It's clear that the devs don't want to give active defenses to the necro because of the second life bar, but what if you can actually use your LF as your out-of-shroud defence?
 

1. Auto Attack
Same, just faster.
 

2. Dark Travel
Shadowstep to the enemy, dealing damage and inflicting conditions. (2 seconds immobilize + 1 second Fear)
 

3.a. Underworld Blessing
Apply 6 seconds of Dark Mantle.
If you have Dark Mantle this skill become Death from Life (3.b)
 

Dark Mantle: All damage is reduced by 50% (like in shroud) and and inflicted to the life force.

Effect ends when entering shroud or when LF drops to 0.
 

3.b. Death from Life
Removes Dark Mantle effect. For every second of Dark Mantle removed you deal damage and gain LF.
If the LF exceeds 100% the difference is converted into healing.
 

And with it I also thought of a rework for the relative trait in Blood Magic:
 

Quickening Thirst -> Rusty blades: Daggers deal less strike damage but apply conditions:
 

Auto: Bleed
Dark Travel: Torment
Death from Life: Poison
Deathly Swarm: Bleed
Enfeebling Blood: Poison

[Zex Anthon.8673]

19 minutes ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

Sadly i feel like the Devs when it comes to the reaper (but also necro in general) listen only the community that has no idea how the game works and dies because they auto-attacks in yolomode against the shroud and constantly waste their active defenses for nothing (It's embarrassing to see how people start wasting dodges and active defenses against nothing only because they have dozens of them, but then they get caught by chilled to the bone without quickness).

This is the opinion of the devs when it comes to necro. It's quite clear they have never played the class.

 

CMC doesn't bother hiding his bias with these patches, the cantrip buffs make this painfully obvious.

[Acanthus.8120]

14 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

Honestly I wish they would just rework Deathly Chill. It's just not great and not consistent. Make it something like "Shroud 4 (or/& 2) now applies Bleed stacks, attack nearby enemies when leaving Shroud, inflicting additional Bleed stacks based on Life Force threshold" 
Would instantly make Condi Reaper an actual thing. 

It used to be 3 bleeds over 5 seconds, Soul Spiral used to have 6 whirls, and the poison duration on Soul Spiral was double duration of what it is now. Anet disincentivized condi-Reaper around the time Scourge came out.

And while I can't call Deathly Chill good, it can be incredibly consistent. Aside from Chilling Nova allowing some consistency, it's best to pair it with Chilling Darkness from Curses, which turns Well of Darkness into a massive bleed nuke and makes your dagger 4 more useful beyond condi-transfer from Blood is Power (also makes Greatsword 4 apply bleeds, but eh). Beyond that, sources of fear will apply chill, which will apply that bleed, which means you can apply a moderate amount of bleeds with staff 2, 3, and 5 (and 4 if you use the condi transfer) while your scepter/dagger 2, 3, 4, and 5 are on cd. Half the build is loading up conditions on yourself to transfer or eat with consume conditions. Epidemic, while still bad, can however transfer 9 bleeds plus a bunch of other conditions through transfering chill + blind + 5 bleeds. That's an edge case though and I'd sooner take corrupt boon for more condi transfer.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Acanthus.8120

[Bookah pls.9352]

I'm not even gonna entertain the reaper stuff, it's just depressing tbh. Maybe when they actually put some effort in i'll put effort into giving feedback on it again.

 

Scourge is in a pretty good spot PvE wise but honestly the scourge traitlines and utilities are pretty sad and the theme of this patch highlights it for me a bit more with the cooldown reduction stuff, if they did this to scourge torch then ultimately the only 2 damage traits on scourges entire trait pool will be demonic lore (a nice trait) and then fell beacon just giving you some extra expertise. This is ignoring sand sage because it's not an optional trait and is default for all scourges.

The only other possible dps trait is sadistic searing which is pretty bad because you don't really run any punishment skills at all except for some niche situations. Again if they continued the cooldown reduction theme thing then this trait would become even more sad than it already is. This is directly tied to just how lackluster the actual punishment skills are for the most part, some of these could really use a rework or even just some buffs to make them worth using.

• It absolutely would not be the end of the world if scourge was given a proper dps trait in the master tier for some more damage at the cost of providing some barrier on shroud casts.
• I was never big on the whole alac scourge idea but looking at the spec lately i can understand why people want it, would actually make the trait options a bit more interesting. 
• It would be nice to also have an option to become an actual healer rather than the gimmick healscourge currently is, i think it would be far more healthy if we actually addressed transfusion for this because in my opinion this is ultimately why we can't have a proper healing spec discussion, a cd increase on shroud 4 when porting downs might balance it more i dunno.

We also have the pvp issue, it's straight up bad in pvp, i'm personally totally ok with this, we have other specs for pvp, but with the intention of dragging firebrand into pvp then it's only fair for scourge too.

 

Then we have harbinger that in general needs some love tbh. Three big glaring issues don't sit well with me in particular.

• Harbinger doesn't use life force as health like reaper or core so why are utilities locked out in shroud? This single aspect being addressed would greatly improve the feeling of playing harbinger, particularly when blight as a core mechanic is heavily tied to elixirs.
• Blights readability icon is tbh awful, this needs to be more readable, maybe have it actually be on the profession mechanic bar on the other side of the life force bar?
• Power in general.... Where is it? The part of this that really gets me is back when we had the final EoD betas, CmC himself who is now since actually been put in charge of this stuff,  hopped on to a stream with mighty teapot to discuss the beta and was specifically asked about the poor performance of power harb.

It's been well over a year since that topic was brought to their attention and it's just a couple weeks away from a year since eod publicly released, absolutely NOTHING has changed here.

Link to the power harbinger "discussion"

 

 

Finally, a general quality of life feature i think should be included is condition cleanse protection/transfer priority. A considerable chunk of condition dmg from necro is based on self applied and transferred conditions, this is fine but it can often be clunky (remember how warrior banners could influence what condi was transferred?) and frustrating sometimes when you have outside interference cleansing before you can transfer or being hit with a worthless condition that is transferred instead. 

The transfer part is often easily countered on scourge by simply shrouding just before the end of BiP cast however that's not always a 100% guarantee and doesn't help with double casting BiP cases nor does it really help harbingers, Just a simple priority of your own self applied conditions being transferred and/or a 1 or 2 second immunity of those conditions being cleansed by anyone other than yourself would go a long way to improving this gameplay loop.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Bookah pls.9352
Three harbinger not two.

[Obtena.7952]

13 hours ago, Zex Anthon.8673 said:

This is the opinion of the devs when it comes to necro. It's quite clear they have never played the class.

My favourite part is where no game dev has ever been compelled to change their game by continually being told they don't play the classes they design. Nor should anyone think that even if insults were compelling a dev who didn't play the class to change a class, those changes would be any better than the current design anyways.

I think it's time you consider the option that the spec just isn't designed in a way that enables you to play optimally ...

... nor should you expect it to be. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Dadnir.5038]

WH: The trait wasn't really interesting before, now it's worse.

Dagger: Beyond the eye pleasing numbers, the true issue of the weapon still remain.

Shout: RIP augury of death, you'll be mourned. The changes to the shout look pretty bad, needing to be at melee range to gain what we used to gain at range might hurt a bit.

Reaper: Blighter boons proc on boon conversion... That's actually great!

[Seuchenherbst.2746]

12 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

It's not a vote or a democracy. 

Did you miss the part at the end of the stream where the devs explicitly called for feedback in this forum?

[SummonMinion.7306]

My feedback for the necro/reaper changes from a competitive standpoint is that they were overall okay in handling the things they chose to change but disappointing due to the small scope of changes.

Core

Warhorn: Honestly, anything that buffs this almost useless weapon is welcome.

Banshee’s Wail: Only concern with this trait is it’s just a nerfed trait due to the cd reduction now being baked baseline into the weapon (not complaining about that, WH was trash). The issue is that the trait was never a competitive choice when it offered both the cd reduction and 50% boost (excluding the LF gain per hit). Now it offers half of what it did before as a trait so I’m seeing even less of a reason to ever pick it up. Maybe buffing the 50% bonus effectiveness to 66% or 75% and finally having the effectiveness also affect the LF gain per hit would make this trait more attractive.

Dagger: Kinda sad that the auto chain will continue to be useless in anything but PVE but I’m happy overall with the changes.

Reaper

Augury of Death: Similar concerns to Banshee’s Wail. The CD reduction was the only reason people picked up this skill. Hopefully the lifesteal effect is buffed or the cd reduction is replaced by another useful effect.

Note: I wasn’t there to watch the entire stream and some people are saying that this trait now adds chilled to all enemies hit which would be amazing, but since I’m not seeing that in the official post I’ll just assume that it’s speculation for now.

Shouts: I like the change of having bonus effects granted when hitting enemies within a certain range threshold. I’m just hoping the range threshold to get those bonus effects isn’t something unusable like a 130 range and is more along the lines of 240 or 300 (to mirror Soul Eater).

What Also Could’ve Been Addressed

Greatsword:

The changes to shouts, WH, and dagger shows that y’all are finally addressing the fact that necro never really had any viable melee options and are finally encouraging closer engagements outside of shroud.

GS still maintains the original theme for Reaper being a slow but heavy hitting class and the slow skills overall have a decent payoff except for the auto chain and GS2 (Gravedigger). GS2 never feels rewarding to cast and I’d much rather rely on lucky crits from GS3 than GS2. Also, Reaper’s GS auto chain isn’t marginally stronger than any other classes’ GS auto chain so I don’t see the logic in it being so much slower. Please either make the chain shorter or make it stronger so that it actually makes sense that it has such a slow windup.

Soul Eater:

I still don’t see why the healing while in shroud was taken away and how the trait gave the Reaper “too much sustain”. If this trait is going to just be a power version of Parasitic Contagion, then I don’t see why the healing while out of shroud shouldn’t be buffed especially since it has a very limiting range threshold. 

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, Seuchenherbst.2746 said:

Did you miss the part at the end of the stream where the devs explicitly called for feedback in this forum?

.. where did I say or suggest people shouldn't give feedback on the forum? Oh I know ... NEVER. But in case you missed it, I AM suggesting that it's nonsensical and counterproductive for people to insult the devs ... the very people who are critical to making the changes the people throwing these insults are asking for. Maybe that's a very unsmart thing for people to do, especially if they DO want the devs to listen to them. 

As for feedback ... what's the actual problem? These are ALL buffs, even if they aren't the ones people wanted. It's AMAZING to me how simply people ignore the fact Anet is going to make changes to the specs according to how they want them to work or be played. The changes are underwhelming or don't fit into how you play? OK, too bad I guess ... because Anet can't make changes that everyone wants everytime they make balance patches. 

The only concern I have here (since NO ONE should be complaining about a patch that is ONLY across the board buffs) is that there is a possibility that removing something like the CD reduction from a trait could make that trait a low value, unmeaningful choice. This is unlikely a significant concern considering how buffing shouts are obviously a strategy Anet is using to improve Reaper gameplay. 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Tnanever.3192]

5 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Sure, you are accusing me of something I didn't do. I'm replying to that. 

I'm also asking you what is the complaint you have about this patch that is SO bad for the class and the game to claim it's a bad decision? Maybe you wanted a healthy round of nerfs or something?

Uh, you seem very confused.  Go re-read the thread.  

[Obtena.7952]

Just now, Tnanever.3192 said:

Uh, you seem very confused.  Go re-read the thread.  

I did read it. You're telling me I'm just a dev defender while there are bad decisions happening.

OK ... if there are bad decisions, what are they? I don't see them. 

[Tnanever.3192]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

I did read it. You're telling me I'm just a dev defender while there are bad decisions happening.

OK ... if there are bad decisions, what are they? I don't see them. 

Nope, that's not what happened.  That's only a small part of what happened.  Not sure if you're actually confused or just doing this as a defense. Just seems like red herrings and strawmen now.  Sad way for you to lose an argument.  I guess we're done here.

[Obtena.7952]

14 minutes ago, Tnanever.3192 said:

Nope, that's not what happened.  That's only a small part of what happened.  Not sure if you're actually confused or just doing this as a defense. Just seems like red herrings and strawmen now.  Sad way for you to lose an argument.  I guess we're done here.

Again, what are the bad decisions that Anet made in this patch that makes me worthy of being labeled a dev defender and you labeling them as 'garbage devs'?  I mean, you want to discuss why I'm wrong to point out it's absurd for people to insult the devs, ESPECAILLY in a patch where we get nothing but buffs. 

You're right ... I don't get it. From where I sit, anyone using a dagger, shouts or WH has absolutely NOTHING to complain about here. Even if you don't use those things, nothing was nerfed either. You're just bitter because you didn't get the changes you wanted.  I mean ... how about people start bringing some relevant perspective to their 'feedback' and realize Anet can't do everything that everyone wants every patch? 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Tnanever.3192]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Again, what are the bad decisions that Anet made in this patch that makes me worthy of being labeled a dev defender?  I mean, you want to discuss why I'm wrong to point out it's absurd for people to insult the devs, ESPECAILLY in a patch where we get nothing but buffs. 

You're right ... I don't get it. From where I sit, anyone using a dagger, shouts or WH has absolutely NOTHING to complain about here. Even if you don't use those things, nothing was nerfed. I mean ... how about people start bringing some relevant perspective to their 'feedback' and realize Anet can't do everything that everyone wants every patch?

 

I'm not rewriting everyone's complaints for you.  They're in the forum.
I'm also not rewriting all my posts because you're too lazy to scroll up.

Are you still posting because you're trying to save face?  Always have to have the last word to feel better?  Go ahead.  Clearly we're done here.  You can post again and feel better.  I'll ignore it - I promise.

[Obtena.7952]

33 minutes ago, Tnanever.3192 said:

I'm not rewriting everyone's complaints for you.  They're in the forum.
I'm also not rewriting all my posts because you're too lazy to scroll up.

Again, complaints that people didn't get changes THEY wanted are hardly valuable feedback, especially when it's peppered with comments like "garbage changes from garbage devs". Anet simply can't cater to individual's ideas about what changes should be made and their priority in any specific patch. So you want to give valuable feedback? Then stick to talking about the changes being proposed.

I get you and others don't like the changes because they aren't the ones you wanted to see ... but that's not feedback on the changes that are actually being introduced. That's just a view into the mindset of people who think the game should change in ways they want ... because somehow they convinced themselves the game is about them. That's simply not realistic. 

Overall, I don't see anything in these changes that would elicit the absurd responses we see in this thread to them. They are ALL pretty reasonable, beneficial changes. Do you have comments on the changes being introduced because from what I see, every post you have here is simply complaining you didn't see the ones you wanted. 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Greviathan.6107]

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Again, what are the bad decisions that Anet made in this patch that makes me worthy of being labeled a dev defender and you labeling them as 'garbage devs'?

I may have missed something, but I don't think I've read anyone calling Devs "Garbage", but I may not remember or may have missed something.

Most, if not all of the positive feeds about the necro were all from PvE only Players, and even there, it wasn't all really positive. Compared to the other classes, objectively the necro is the one that has received the most empty and lacking patchnote..
 

3 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

we get nothing but buffs

We haven't even been provided with precise data on shouts, currently it's not even certifiable that they're all buffs.
Even just trying to push the reaper further into melee range when it's out of shroud (when it doesn't have the tools to do so in pvp/wvw), is potentially a nerf. But then again, without data there isn't much to say on this part, so it's also not possible to offer an accurate feed about this.

 

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Again, complaints that people didn't get changes THEY wanted are hardly valuable feedback, especially when it's peppered with comments like "garbage changes from garbage devs". Anet simply can't cater to individual's ideas about what changes should be made and their priority in any specific patch. So you want to give valuable feedback? Then stick to talking about the changes being proposed.

Actually, to say that the patch note is lacking and misses the point is a feedback on the patch note!

The fact that we have exposed what works and what doesn't work, even spending hours of our time* to analyze and create solutions, is not a "WE WANT" or a shopping list, but constructive feeds.
* With the awareness of being easily ignored, and not many people knowing this are committed to giving structured feedbacks.
 

Also feeds that are limited to "Nice Changes, Great Devs" are just as useful as  "Horrible Changes, Bad Devs," as they aren't constructive feeds anyway.

[Dadnir.5038]

15 hours ago, SummonMinion.7306 said:

Note: I wasn’t there to watch the entire stream and some people are saying that this trait now adds chilled to all enemies hit which would be amazing, but since I’m not seeing that in the official post I’ll just assume that it’s speculation for now.

Superior runes of the reaper make shout apply chill since forever, so:

1- It could be what make people think augury of death now make shout apply chill

2- It would be excessively unimaginative to make augury of death apply chill.

[Obtena.7952]

8 hours ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

I may have missed something, but I don't think I've read anyone calling Devs "Garbage", but I may not remember or may have missed something.

Yeah you did. The person was specifically replying to ... did exactly that. That post has since been removed. 

8 hours ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

Most, if not all of the positive feeds about the necro were all from PvE only Players, and even there, it wasn't all really positive. Compared to the other classes, objectively the necro is the one that has received the most empty and lacking patchnote..

OK ... that doesn't change the fact that every change we got is a buff to the skills that are being changed. Again, people might not like these changes because they aren't the ones they want but there is always someone out there who wanted different changes ... does that make EVERY patch terrible? That's unreasonable because Anet can't cater to individuals. 

8 hours ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

We haven't even been provided with precise data on shouts, currently it's not even certifiable that they're all buffs.
Even just trying to push the reaper further into melee range when it's out of shroud (when it doesn't have the tools to do so in pvp/wvw), is potentially a nerf. But then again, without data there isn't much to say on this part, so it's also not possible to offer an accurate feed about this.

Weird take ... at this point, if people are going to provide VALID feedback, it's about the changes themselves, not how they affect how they play the class. 

8 hours ago, Greviathan.6107 said:

Actually, to say that the patch note is lacking and misses the point is a feedback on the patch note!

The fact that we have exposed what works and what doesn't work, even spending hours of our time* to analyze and create solutions, is not a "WE WANT" or a shopping list, but constructive feeds.
* With the awareness of being easily ignored, and not many people knowing this are committed to giving structured feedbacks.
 

Also feeds that are limited to "Nice Changes, Great Devs" are just as useful as  "Horrible Changes, Bad Devs," as they aren't constructive feeds anyway.

Again, we will also see people can complain Anet 'misses the mark' with the changes for literally EVERY patch note if their basis for that complaint is that Anet isn't changing things they want ... so that's not really a valid complaint because the game isn't about them. The offensive part is where that becomes a breakdown in feedback because of insults and ridiculous claims that Anet doesn't know their game and other stupid things like that. That should simply not be tolerated BY ANYONE.

Do you really think people are being ignored by Anet? That seems to me that's an absurd conclusion to make everytime Anet doesn't make a change someone wants. LIke, there's 1000's of people shouting at Anet what they want at the same time ... somehow they are going to address every single person doing that with a single approach? No, that's nonsense. It's not possible. The fact is that this patch is actually one of the better results any player can hope for ... all buffs, no nerfs, minimal impact on playstyle if you don't use these skills, something to think about if you do. 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Forum Moderator.3419]

Hello Everyone,

Just a reminder to keep it civil and avoid being rude to other players. I've removed some posts.

Regards.