Tue Patch 11-28-2017

[intox.6347]

@Obtena.7952 said:Anet doesn't sit around and 'reason' themselves into believing their changes are the right thing to do; it's not a question of morality; their justification is simply to adhere to the ideas of what they want the class to be; the idea they have to justify their changes to players is completely nonsensical. They simply say they want something to work a certain way and they change it to do that. Reaper was a supposed to be an elite spec, but it didn't feel like it; it played too much like Core Necro and Death Shroud. Anet fixed that and gave us an updated spec that not only plays different (the whole point of the elite spec), it also gives us more damage in PVE ... something players have wanted for a long time.

You might not think so, but being conceptually correct is a REALLY important thing, not just in GW2 either.Do you really play necro ? I have bad feeling that you just try it in pvp few times, and then aboard necro hate ship.You justify Anets behavior, even if they balance like " Ok we can throw this in fire and we will see if it burns or not. "

You said ppl maybe like reaper change .... who ? Maybe 1 of 50.. This forum is full of angry reapers. They dont know what they doing...They destroy condi reaper to force you play power reaper. They destroy defense options of reaper to make him more dps wise, but to which game mode ? In pve highend meta its still trash, in pvp also, in wvw you must be crazy fun of reaper to pick him over scourge, coz he have nothing to offer.I used in wvw power bruiser build with wells , viper shout condi reaper, trailblazer condi bruiser... all of these are unplayable now.And if you compare to scourge... which have range damage, triple survivability and role in group.

So tell us where you play reaper ? Because you look like only one satisfy with changes.

And my prediction for patch:They wont revert changes.They will only more nerf scourge (coz of pvp, wvw cry)

[Vitali.5039]

They have started changing useless traits as Rending Shroud into something good but I agrree that the whirl nerf on Soul Spiral was overkill, taking into account that now Deathly Chill PvP/WvW version are both splitted from the PvE one.

Maybe if they change Deathly Chill, adding power as modifier to bleeding, we could have a good damaging build while not dealing too much damage in PvP/WvW.Something similar with the Guardian's old Radiant Retaliation but with both scaling.

[Carighan.6758]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:Doubtful. ANet never actually reverts changes.

One of their greatest flaws because it applies to all of their design, and not just to 1-for-1 reverting changes they did in the past. They seem clinically afraid of changing existing things. They'd rather staple new elements on top of try to use them to fix old design.

This has an interesting side-effect which we saw with the shroud: when they do change something which already exists, all hell breaks lose because none of the surrounding context has been touched upon in years. Because, overall I like the idea of a shorter reaper shroud with much harder hits. First step towards making reaper what it was billed as back in HoT. But it's obviously very unfinished, and should have been followed up by multiple changes to the surrounding elements such as shouts, weapon skills and utility skills in general and other traits. But it wasn't. And they won't do that. They'll instead give us a new power-centric elite spec with whatever the next xpack will be, and that one will implement everything they should have done on reaper.

[Anchoku.8142]

My expectations of Scourge before the beta were:Mobility skillsImmunity skillsHeavy burning condi worthy of raids and/or some awesome support like alacrity.

With Scourge, I also expected Reaper to turn into a competitive power-build elite, even if bleed-on-chill was sacrificed.

What we got were messy compromises; not unplayable but not what I expected.

[ilmau.9781]

patch is here, we have not been listened, c u on reddit and thanks everyone for trying the polite way :)

[FaboBabo.3581]

@ilmau.9781 said:patch is here, we have not been listened, c u on reddit and thanks everyone for trying the polite way :)

Mid season ; no balance patch until january..

[intox.6347]

Wow nothing, dunno if some hidden changes, but nothing written :D

[trueanimus.4085]

yup guess so... stuck playing scourge for now =(

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@ilmau.9781 said:patch is here, we have not been listened, c u on reddit and thanks everyone for trying the polite way :)

Given how there were ZERO changes for everyone. I would say it wasnt a balance update. As clearly shown. The actual balance update wont be until January.

[Dadnir.5038]

I wonder how the change of weakness vs bosses will impact the game... (well I doubt anyone will take a necro for weakness, other professions can easily do it)

[Anchoku.8142]

"All bosses are no longer immune to weakness."

It is a small bone they toss to us.

[Vitali.5039]

@Anchoku.8142 said:"All bosses are no longer immune to weakness."

It is a small bone they toss to us.

Or maybe not

[Swagg.9236]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@hurrado.2346 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Aetatis.5418 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@ilmau.9781 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:If there is a 'reversion', it won't be a rollback. It will likely be an adjustment of some numbers. The concept of Reaper is an improvement; what is left is minor adjustments.

i really wanted to write something like this:

"OK GUYS LISTEN, obtena here said it is an improvement soooo we are all scrubs who do not know how to use our main class, we look foward to see some of vids of you that teach us how to play the reaper, that would be great. Thank you to giving us such amazing feedback i am about to take a screen and make it as my desktop to remember your words as best as often as possible.... "

well, but i am quite a polite guy so i will just say what i really think, do you realize you are one in one million considering it an improvement?

almost the totality of the main necro players consider it a total destruction of the class to the point it is unplayable...

No, I'm not one in a million .. you have no idea how many people like or dislike this change. Again, you're inventing things and have a level of sensationalism that fools no one. Anet had a goal to change reaper and they did what they said they wanted to do.

You need to bring yourself around the way Anet thinks

if you want to make a difference here.

i need a way to look into someones head ... because someone that never communicates with me - well its hard to tell what those people intend to do really.

Your statement is actually disingenuous here ... Anet DID communicate why they made this change to us in the patch notes. The barriers to understand this change do not EXIST, so don't try to make it sound like we are in some fog where Anet makes changes that no one understands. Even if they didn't, these aren't big leaps of logic to understand why such things are done, including the fact there is history in the game; it's not like Anet is wildly unpredictable. Many of their changes are more aligned to the conceptual side and less so what most of us consider balancing.

Please enlighten me on Anets communication. There was absolutely no reason to nerf shroud degeneration. We have poor defensive mechanisms all around and still do meh damage in comparison to almost every other class on the game and you think Anet wanted to make us even easier to kill? Can't do the extra damage when you are slaughtered in team fights since Necros are typically the first and easiest targets to kill.

Anet doesn't sit around and 'reason' themselves into believing their changes are the right thing to do; it's not a question of morality; their justification is simply to adhere to the ideas of what they want the class to be; the idea they have to justify their changes to players is completely nonsensical. They simply say they want something to work a certain way and they change it to do that. Reaper was a supposed to be an elite spec, but it didn't feel like it; it played too much like Core Necro and Death Shroud. Anet fixed that and gave us an updated spec that not only plays different (the whole point of the elite spec), it also gives us more damage in PVE ... something players have wanted for a long time.

You might not think so, but being conceptually correct is a REALLY important thing, not just in GW2 either.

Function before flavor. Always. Breaking that rule so consistently is why GW2 is such a mess of unused bloat and overpowered gimmicks.

[iSmack.1768]

We can also all pretend we're Soulless Horror from the new Raid... We're never gonna be that cool :l

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

@Vitali.5039 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:"All bosses are no longer immune to weakness."

It is a small bone they toss to us.

Or maybe not

We're not totally without benefit. We get an additional 2% crit chance from Target the Weak...

[Atzros.8715]

So, the patch dropped, and I ASSUME people haven't worked out the perfect meta setup for the new raid quite yet. How much do you want to be Necromancer will be completely undesirable in this Underworld/Undead/Death themed raid? That would be a real slap in the face.

[Obtena.7952]

@Carighan.6758 said:

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:Doubtful. ANet never actually reverts changes.

One of their greatest flaws because it applies to all of their design, and not just to 1-for-1 reverting changes they did in the past. They seem

clinically

afraid of changing existing things. They'd rather staple new elements on top of try to use them to fix old design.

This has an interesting side-effect which we saw with the shroud: when they

do

change something which already exists, all hell breaks lose because none of the surrounding context has been touched upon in years. Because, overall I like the idea of a shorter reaper shroud with much harder hits. First step towards making reaper what it was billed as back in HoT. But it's obviously very unfinished, and

should have

been followed up by multiple changes to the surrounding elements such as shouts, weapon skills and utility skills in general and other traits. But it wasn't. And they won't do that. They'll instead give us a new power-centric elite spec with whatever the next xpack will be, and

that one

will implement everything they should have done on reaper.

That's an interesting theory, considering that the new Reaper changes is a significant departure from an existing thing, as well as the concept of Scourge. In fact, the whole game is a significant departure from the whole industry; no holy trinity being another example.

[Vitali.5039]

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Vitali.5039 said:

@Anchoku.8142 said:"All bosses are no longer immune to weakness."

It is a small bone they toss to us.

Or maybe not

We're not totally without benefit. We get an additional 2% crit chance from Target the Weak...

True, but the "bone" wasn't threw at us.After the Alpha Dog have chewing the bone we could at least have a bone's shard.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Atzros.8715 said:So, the patch dropped, and I ASSUME people haven't worked out the perfect meta setup for the new raid quite yet. How much do you want to be Necromancer will be completely undesirable in this Underworld/Undead/Death themed raid? That would be a real slap in the face.

Seem like, at the moment, if necromancer in itself isn't desirable, epidemic is. Yeah... gimmickmancer...

[Freyr.6980]

@Obtena.7952 said:That's an interesting theory, considering that the new Reaper changes is a significant departure from an existing thing, as well as the concept of Scourge. In fact, the whole game is a significant departure from the whole industry; no holy trinity being another example.

What I'm wondering is why it took 2+ years for them to make this change to Reaper. Reaper was supposed to start off like this when HoT was released, but it ended up being just another iteration of Shroud in my opinion. Reaper, to me, was supposed to bring power Necro to the forefront where the concept of Shroud was going to be manipulated and utilised differently than what we were used to with DS.

I really like the approach they took with Scourge. Of course we know a nerf is coming soon for it, but the point is that they provided a class that was aligned with everything that they were talking about. But that's why I find it odd that they are starting to resemble their initial concept of Reaper 2+ years in to HoT when people have already gotten comfortable with Reaper the way it was, and also the fact that it's years into HoT where we finally see Reaper "how it was intended" ... that makes little sense to me. Reaper should have been balanced within the 6 months of HoT if they truly intended Reaper to be played this way. Now I think that this Reaper better aligns itself with the Reaper that I heard about when HoT came out ... but 2 yrs after it's released? It was played differently for so long that I'm just wondering why they did that. Also not only that but their balance patches are so far from each other. More frequent and consistent patches would be really good in my opinion.

Their interpretation of Shroud now seems different to me, and makes me wonder about the viability of playing Necro in the first place. When I'm being chased, it doesn't matter if I am Reaper or DS, I have no real form of escape anymore. In order for me to uphold being a power Necro, I need to be able to use Shroud in a way that supplements my HP.

Basically, I thought THIS was the trade off:

• Reaper has a lot more burst than DS
• Shroud is supplemented for the lack of defense/evasiveness that legitimately every single other class has other than NecroI was fine with this since I figured that basically Necro was supposed to switch back and forth while kiting. That's how Reaper was being used, at least by me.
• Shroud is the main focus of Necro, and every build for Necro utilised Shroud as a defense mechanismEven if people say they didn't use Shroud this way, I highly doubt that in actual fights they did NOT use Shroud partially as a defense even if it they didn't realise it

With the recent patch, it seems like Shroud is meant now as a burst more than a defense ... which is fine, but there is no way of surviving long ranges anymore. I used to be able to close the gap more easily with a Mesmer that is like 50 yards away by using Shroud as a tank to either run or pursue ... but now it is burned so quickly, I haven't figured out a way to sustain myself when simply being kited or when being pursued at long range where my Necro doesn't really have any moves to close the gap or to run away aside form Reaper 2 - maybe if I wanted to use Spec Armor or Ghost Walk or Flesh Wurm but those aren't the greatest skills to begin with and their CD is relatively high. I think other people are annoyed at that too - that Shroud burns so quickly and there are no defensive or evasive moves that go large distances or that tank a lot of damage as much as Shroud used to. I think closing the gap has always been the problem with Necro. Now we are supposed to burst damage at melee range while having a Shroud that hardly lasts a full rotation while you're being burned and without any way of closing the gap.

[KrHome.1920]

@Freyr.6980 said:maybe if I wanted to use Spec Armor or Ghost Walk or Flesh Wurm but those aren't the greatest skills to begin withIf you are saying Spectral Armor is not a great skill you are playing the class wrong. It's mandatory in every single PvP Reaper build... every single one!

Not using it is like playing Mesmer without Blink, Ranger without Stone Signet, Thief without Shadow Step or Warrior without Endure Pain. Your survivability goes down the toilet!

Spectral Armor + Shroud combo is by far the strongest defense we have.

[Freyr.6980]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Freyr.6980 said:maybe if I wanted to use Spec Armor or Ghost Walk or Flesh Wurm but those aren't the greatest skills to begin withIf you are saying Spectral Armor is not a great skill you are playing the class wrong. It's mandatory in every single PvP Reaper build... every single one!

Not using it is like playing Mesmer without Blink, Ranger without Stone Signet, Thief without Shadow Step or Warrior without Endure Pain. Your survivability goes down the toilet!

Spectral Armor + Shroud combo is by far the strongest defense we have

Yeah I guess I shouldn't have said that about Spec Armor, lol. My bad. I was moreso referring to ghost walk and flesh wurm. I used to like ghost walk ... and if flesh wurm recognised the Z axis, I would definitely use it. But I haven't really found situations where either skill works for me. But I do know what you mean about spec armor.

I used to use spec a lot more than I do now. I joined a guild that often did raids and found that I wasn't getting as much use out of it in large zergs than I did in skirmishes. But my guild is on a different server so I'm skirmishing a lot more ... perhaps I'll revist the spec armor now. I still think that they could give us more options to amp up our defense.

[Obtena.7952]

I can only guess as to why it took two years. I think if there is anything to fault Anet for on this change, it's the following:

1. It strays from the original concept, though that's not a bad thing, especially if the original concept was not very good or very different from core Necro to begin with. I believe that problem is solved.
2. Yes, it took two years, which is bordering on ridiculous; it took them longer to change an old espec than it did to develop and release a new one ... THAT'S a development failure IMO. I'm certain Anet is loathe to admit this failure, or that of the Reaper MK. I concept. The language used to describe the change is rather 'light' in it's perspective on the significance and reasoning.
3. It sort of ignores a greater conceptual problem with the class at large; I believe the Scourge is successful because it addresses that problem in some ways. It's outside the scope of this thread to discuss it but this problem is not yet addressed outside of Scourge.

@ilmau.9781 said:patch is here, we have not been listened, c u on reddit and thanks everyone for trying the polite way :)

No reasonable player with any sense of the history of this game and it's development should have expected class changes with this patch.

[ArmageddonAsh.6430]

@KrHome.1920 said:If you are saying Spectral Armor is not a great skill you are playing the class wrong. It's mandatory in every single PvP Reaper build... every single one!

Not using it is like playing Mesmer without Blink, Ranger without Stone Signet, Thief without Shadow Step or Warrior without Endure Pain. Your survivability goes down the toilet!

Spectral Armor + Shroud combo is by far the strongest defense we have.

It being a requirement doesnt make it good. It just means that it could still be a dreadful skill when compared to other defensive skills but its better than having nothing. Spectral Armor + Shroud might be the strongest defense Necro have, but when you compare that to what other classes get, you see just how weak it really is. Its not a good skill in terms of good defense skills in the game, but it is good when you only look at what Necro has in terms of defense.

I might play My Soul beast and Chrono wrong because i dont use Blink (never have done...) and i dont use Stone Signet (Never have done) Chrono/Mesmer doesnt need blink, it has great mobility without it Does Blink help with survivability? Yes. Is it required? No. Is Spectral Armor good? No. Is it needed? Yes.

[powerbits.6235]

Scourge wont be nerfed until anet finishes getting their money from bandwagoners who buy gear. I mean, in wvw scourge positively destroys all pre pof builds (maybe not a great dd), and firebrand can not last more than 20 or 30 seconds against a good scourge. Thank god it is slow because if it were a roamer, the game would be instantly dead to me...