November 28th Patch Notes Preview - Step in the right direction power creep that doesn't solve class identity issues

[Apokriphos.7042]

Necromancer

We've focused on improving some of necromancer's less utilized skills and traits. We've also swapped the position of the Terror and Parasitic Contagion traits in the curses specialization to allow more trait selection flexibility for fear-focused condition builds.

• Well of Blood: Increased the base pulse healing from 280 to 496 in PvP and WvW. - 
• Life Transfer: This skill now also inflicts bleeding when striking an enemy.
• Signet of Vampirism: Increased the base active healing from 4,950 to 5,750. Increased base active life-steal healing from 470 to 600.
• Plague Signet: Reduced the cooldown from 35 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW. Reduced the number of conditions transferred from 4 to 3 in PvP and WvW.
• Well of Power: Reduced the cooldown from 40 seconds to 35 seconds in PvP and WvW.
• Terror: This trait has been moved to the grandmaster tier. Increased the base damage from 444 to 555, and increased the condition damage scaling from 0.4 to 0.55.
• Parasitic Contagion: This trait has been moved to the master tier.
• Master of Corruption: This trait now applies vulnerability instead of blindness when using Consume Conditions.
• Soul Comprehension: This trait now also grants life force upon entering a shroud form based on the number of active Death's Carapace stacks.
• Deadly Strength: This trait now also grants condition damage per stack of Death's Carapace.

Reaper

• Augury of Death: Increased the base life-steal damage from 138 to 172. Increased the life-steal power coefficient from 0.01 to 0.0125.  Increased the base life-steal healing from 125 to 156. Increased the life-steal healing coefficient from 0.02 to 0.025.
• Blighter's Boon: This trait now always heals and grants life force regardless of whether the necromancer is in a shroud form. Reduced the base healing from 197 to 85.

Scourge

• Feed from Corruption: Reduced the base barrier from 1,000 to 750 and the healing coefficient from 0.5 to 0.25 in PvP only.
• Demonic Lore: Reduced the torment damage bonus from 33% to 20% in PvP only.

Harbinger

• Elixir of Bliss: Reduced the cooldown from 32 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.

My comments will only be from a WvW perspective. 

Necromancer has significant problems in WvW, and some strengths. Long seen as the king of boon corruption, recent patches have significantly nerfed that niche to the point where even coordinated bursts on a single target barely counters innate boon generation from most enemy classes (guardians and elementalists in particular), and other classes do the boon rip much better at less risk due to their innate abilities necromancer does not have (warrior, revenant, mesmer to name a few). I have been playing a necromancer as my main class since GW2 began, but recently I handed in the towel to try some of the more over tuned specs.

>Harbinger suffers greatly from being overwhelmingly projectile focused, even in its - mandatory - utilities, leaving it significantly outclassed even in small fights when an enemy uses projectile block. 

>Core necromancer suffers the most here, with badly out of date shroud skills. Life Transfer buff will need *significant* bleeds to make this nearly unusable tier spec usable in wvw.

>Reaper blighters boon buff is an interesting change but without easy access to quickness (dread buff likely needed here) to compensate for the slow strikes, it will not be taken.

Terrormancer is not a functional choice with the easy access (even more after this upcoming patch) of both cleanse, stability, and stun breaks. Its likely a nonstarter, and will need much more buffs/ or nerfs of other classes, to be functional.

 

In small scale or large, it isn't even a question - Necromancer needs significantly more work than what was done here to make it a viable choice. Most of the issue is likely outdated utilities/traits. Without an invulnerability when focused on, without functional escapes when outnumbered, without some form of block/evade, necromancers weak boon corrupt niche position is better filled by more flexible classes with better, more up to date traits and skills that can flex into other things when the situation requires. I respect the development team for making an attempt, but much more is needed to make this class viable at the highest level of competitive challenges. Until then, other specs are much better for what they do.

[Dadnir.5038]

My thought after reading those notes: "Are they crazy?"

[Uete.3805]

I'm not too keen on the Curses traitline changes (looking it from a PvP/PvE perspective). On the GM side of things our options are:

• Condi mini-burst and weakness when entering shroud or critting (no more boon reap since last June)
• Fear does damage
• Extra condi damage and improved scepter

Essentially all GMs do now is only improve condi damage with different flavors. The first one applies some weakness and the third one has some utility built into Scepter 3 being AoE corruption, but that's about it. Terror should have something more to be competitive, unless I'm downplaying the +25% damage. It would make sense if Resistance didn't block the Fear damage (as some people have proposed) when using this trait or if it provided a new source of Fear in pve (for instance to Shroud 3, increasing Fear coverage or duration for all 3 elite specs).

On the other hand the Master tier is full-on utility:

• Faster Corruptions recharge (which might be gone in a few patches given that they are removing most of the CDR traits)
• Corrupt on Shroud 2
• Heal from your applied conditions

I think this one gives more compelling choices for your build, but there's no clear damage trait (unless we count the Faster corruptions, since those allow for faster condi generation from the utilities it affects).

 

Edited October 28, 2023 by Uete.3805

[wolfyrik.2017]

I am not keen, my build uses both  path of corruption and parasitic contagion. With this change I lose one trait and not one of the GMs benefits me at all. The rest of the changes look fine, but I don't see the point of this one at all, nor do I see how it benefits fear builds particularly.

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, wolfyrik.2017 said:

I am not keen, my build uses both  path of corruption and parasitic contagion. With this change I lose one trait and not one of the GMs benefits me at all. The rest of the changes look fine, but I don't see the point of this one at all, nor do I see how it benefits fear builds particularly.

I guess it does benefit fear builds in the sense that you can slot path of corruption and terror at the same time (increasing the probabilities of proc'ing fear in competitive mode by a tiny bit). But the more concerning issue is that players will now be able to slot both lingering curse and parasitic contagion which will lead to dps builds with more sustain.

[Lorelei.3918]

I really hate the Terror change. My celestial fear necro needs the extra condi damage from Lingering Curse. 

[SleepyBat.9034]

15 hours ago, Apokriphos.7042 said:

Signet of Vampirism: Increased the base active healing from 4,950 to 5,750. Increased base active life-steal healing from 470 to 600.

The problem with the healing signet is the life steal radius is soooo small it isn't worth running. 180?! what a joke.

 

15 hours ago, Apokriphos.7042 said:

• Soul Comprehension: This trait now also grants life force upon entering a shroud form based on the number of active Death's Carapace stacks.
• Deadly Strength: This trait now also grants condition damage per stack of Death's Carapace.
• Elixir of Bliss: Reduced the cooldown from 32 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.

I am very concerned about the direct buffs to Harbinger which is already overperforming in WvW.

Edited October 28, 2023 by SleepyBat.9034

[Lenmar.1970]

28 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I guess it does benefit fear builds in the sense that you can slot path of corruption and terror at the same time (increasing the probabilities of proc'ing fear in competitive mode by a tiny bit). But the more concerning issue is that players will now be able to slot both lingering curse and parasitic contagion which will lead to dps builds with more sustain.

But if you want to trait Parasitic Contagion, you now lose Master of Corruption which is also a pure DPS trait like Lingering Curse... you still have to choose between DPS and sustain.

[Oslaf Beinir.5842]

Pointless and not so impactful changes really aside from the Death Magic buffs.

Terror is still worthless as a trait nowadays when you cannot guarantee the full damage, nor are you able to inflect it with Stability and Resistance on the targets. Furthermore, cleansing Terror ( not counting stunbreak) is too easy when the weapons and on shroud entry traits lost boon corruptions and boon removal which helped overwhelm cleanses and protect you Terror from being cleansed. Curses other two GM traits are more guaranteed to work whenever you land them instead of once every pink moon.


overall, these proposed updates change nothing and open up no new options for the class, entirely ineffective.  Heck the relics update affects the class more LOL.

[porkchopMCgee.6193]

Blighter's Boon: This trait now always heals and grants life force regardless of whether the necromancer is in a shroud form. Reduced the base healing from 197 to 85.

Welp that's interesting.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

From my point of view it's a mixed bag.

I love what they did with Death Magic.
The new changes really hit home both in terms of usefulness and improving traitline's own identity (build agnostic passive defenses with bit of damage if needed).
Now condi necros two good reasons to build DM too (lf generation and potentially 300 condi damage).

The curses change is more of a mixed bag. PvE necros can rejoice with access to both lingering curses and parasitic contagion for some beefier heavy condi builds.
PvP necros however have every right to feel shafted, since terrormancer is taking a huge hit by not being able to slot lingering curses - a must have trait for scepter necros.

Signet's of Vampirism problem is it's passive not active. Making active a bit sweeter does not address the elephant in the room.

Blighter's Boon is an interesting one. Nerfing the heal when shrouded hurts. There are very few ways for reaper to heal his base heath when shrouded. That being said bringing the lf generation to shrouded form feels like a kitten solid buff. Spite reapers may enjoy some nice extra time in shroud after this.

Life Transfer feels... insulting. Enemy takes more damage from it if it is bleeding already.
So there, here's a bleed.

What's the point if the condition is already fullfilled by casting the skill itself?
At that point you might as well remove that mechanic all together and just buff base damage by 20%.
Unless we're talking bleeding per pulse/tick, in which case this makes dagger much more acceptable on condition build and makes sense from that angle.

Rest is just cooldown buffs and/or number tweaks that are ok for some skills, while don't change much for others that clearly suffer for vastly different reasons (like plague signet whose passive is useless).

Edited October 29, 2023 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Dadnir.5038]

3 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Life Transfer feels... insulting. Enemy takes more damage from it if it is bleeding already.

You're thinking about the wrong skill. Life transfer isn't dagger's life siphon, It's the death shroud skill#4. In my book it's a buff that even the field with reaper's Soul spiral.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

You're thinking about the wrong skill. Life transfer isn't dagger's life siphon, It's the death shroud skill#4. In my book it's a buff that even the field with reaper's Soul spiral.

Oh mb then. On shroud 4 it's great!

[Dadnir.5038]

On 10/28/2023 at 3:22 AM, Apokriphos.7042 said:

We've also swapped the position of the Terror and Parasitic Contagion traits in the curses specialization to allow more trait selection flexibility for fear-focused condition builds.

The change don't match the purpose.

On 10/28/2023 at 3:22 AM, Apokriphos.7042 said:

Life Transfer: This skill now also inflicts bleeding when striking an enemy.

Nice, ir even the ground between reaper's soul spiral and core life transfer, still, the main issue of the death shroud is and have always been life blast.

On 10/28/2023 at 3:22 AM, Apokriphos.7042 said:

Signet of Vampirism: Increased the base active healing from 4,950 to 5,750. Increased base active life-steal healing from 470 to 600.

Another case of buffing the wrong thing in order to make something popular... At 0 healing power, a 9k heal on 24s CD... 😅. The devs really know how to play...

On 10/28/2023 at 3:22 AM, Apokriphos.7042 said:

Blighter's Boon: This trait now always heals and grants life force regardless of whether the necromancer is in a shroud form. Reduced the base healing from 197 to 85.

The return of the perma shroud... I guess they removed it for no reason...

On 10/28/2023 at 3:22 AM, Apokriphos.7042 said:

• Feed from Corruption: Reduced the base barrier from 1,000 to 750 and the healing coefficient from 0.5 to 0.25 in PvP only.
• Demonic Lore: Reduced the torment damage bonus from 33% to 20% in PvP only.

2 free blows to scourge in PvP. It feel like they are kicking a dead horse... Maybe they needed to relieve some pent up stress.

On 10/28/2023 at 3:22 AM, Apokriphos.7042 said:

Elixir of Bliss: Reduced the cooldown from 32 seconds to 25 seconds in PvP and WvW.

Seeing that so few tweaks hit harbinger since it's release, the spec must be a model of perfection.

[Scarlet.8964]

On 10/29/2023 at 8:48 PM, Dadnir.5038 said:

The return of the perma shroud... I guess they removed it for no reason...

In my opinion they remove it for sake of removing someting, not because of "balance".

[Asum.4960]

On 10/30/2023 at 8:05 PM, Scarlet.8964 said:

In my opinion they remove it for sake of removing someting, not because of "balance".

And this is no suitable replacement for it either. 

For one, it doesn't fix anything for Harbinger, which imo was the more fun casual content Shroud camper, and for Reaper it means entirely relying on Shroud 3 Fear interactions through things like Dread and/or Celerity Sigil to gain and maintain Quickness, so the build will come to a screeching halt when encountering CC immunities, which are still a thing ingame now on some bosses and such post Defiance Bar system implementation 8 years ago, leaving it situationally unable to trigger any of it's Quickness sources. 

Anet just keeps stumbling, removing all these niche but fun build pathways and playstyles, replacing them with uninspired and uncalled for changes, just to then kind of bring them back but in a clunky and far less fun way, and then they wring their hands and walk away. 

Is anyone actually using and enjoying the "new" (aka worse and more bland than game launch) Signet's of Suffering, in any game mode? 

If they are not fundamentally opposed to Shroud camping as niche casual/soloplay playtsyle, as this change indicates.., why not just revert the Signet change and get the more fun and engaging version of the playstyle back. 

It's almost like they are physically unable to listen to community feedback or admit to bad changes most of the time, just digging deeper and deeper into poor design decisions, before simply scrapping a change, let alone reverting it.

[Marxx.5021]

Most necromancer patches read the same. They don't like to do much - just the bare minimum. It feels any other class gets more effort spent.

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, Marxx.5021 said:

Most necromancer patches read the same. They don't like to do much - just the bare minimum. It feels any other class gets more effort spent.

I see this sentiment expressed in every profession subforum, except the ones that are happy to see their profession being mostly skipped in patch notes because the expected alternative is being nerfed to the bone.

[Nimon.7840]

Ok first of:

Scourge is one of the strongest supports in wvw right now. If you can get a firebrand, a class that cleanses and heals and a heal/support scourge in your group paired with two DPS specs that's basically the optimal comp right now in my opinion.

The barrier output is crazy and it also removes/corrupts boons like almost no other build right now. 

Imo this build needs nerfs or better: changes, but I feel like if you touch it just the wrong way, Necro won't have a spec for wvw zerging anymore.

Reaper is absolutely fine right now as a DPS for zerging, but it's heavily enabled by the barrier output of scourge. Else your shroud gets deleted way too fast. And blighters boon will never see any play in wvw. The extra ferocity, quickness and even the cooldown reduction is just needed in wvw.

Now we get a possible relic choice for reaper. The nourys one I believe. But it reads like that is just for longer fights, which might be useless.

Last roaming: still no one will take blighters boon on reaper. Both other traits give you so much more dmg output and you won't kill anyone by just tanking dmg, without being able to deal considerable dmg yourself.

Core: I can see a world where terrormancer might be one of those oppressive roaming builds that's basically impossible to kill, unless you Perma cc it.

Harbinger gets buffed, Which I don't understand. Cele harbinger is over performing in roaming. (Well same as cele catalyst and power/cele willbender) The only problem I have with nerfing that build is, that cele is basically the only choice you have on harb. The power version is absolutely useless and the pure condi version doesn't have enough sustain from boons and healing effects. Which says a lot about the spec (needs some major reworks imo)

Edited November 6, 2023 by Nimon.7840

[XECOR.2814]

4 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

Ok first of:

Scourge is one of the strongest supports in wvw right now. If you can get a firebrand, a class that cleanses and heals and a heal/support scourge in your group paired with two DPS specs that's basically the optimal comp right now in my opinion.

The barrier output is crazy and it also removes/corrupts boons like almost no other build right now. 

Imo this build needs nerfs or better: changes, but I feel like if you touch it just the wrong way, Necro won't have a spec for wvw zerging anymore.

Reaper is absolutely fine right now as a DPS for zerging, but it's heavily enabled by the barrier output of scourge. Else your shroud gets deleted way too fast. And blighters boon will never see any play in wvw. The extra ferocity, quickness and even the cooldown reduction is just needed in wvw.

Now we get a possible relic choice for reaper. The nourys one I believe. But it reads like that is just for longer fights, which might be useless.

Last roaming: still no one will take blighters boon on reaper. Both other traits give you so much more dmg output and you won't kill anyone by just tanking dmg, without being able to deal considerable dmg yourself.

Core: I can see a world where terrormancer might be one of those oppressive roaming builds that's basically impossible to kill, unless you Perma cc it.

Harbinger gets buffed, Which I don't understand. Cele harbinger is over performing in roaming. (Well same as cele catalyst and power/cele willbender) The only problem I have with nerfing that build is, that cele is basically the only choice you have on harb. The power version is absolutely useless and the pure condi version doesn't have enough sustain from boons and healing effects. Which says a lot about the spec (needs some major reworks imo)

Core terrormancer will never be 'oppressive' because of cast times and bad qol on skills.
Also it has 0 defensive boons and the ones they have is very infrequent. All skills are easily interruptible and have long cooldowns.
If you die to core necromancer, you most likely deserved it. 
The weakness as always are kiting -> attacking when shroud drop -> cc the heal skill. ez win everyday.
The core necromancer kit is highly outdated.

[Seuchenherbst.2746]

On 11/6/2023 at 6:39 PM, XECOR.2814 said:

The core necromancer kit is highly outdated.

What makes it even more frustrating is seeing how bloated Specter's shadow shroud skills all are. Each one feels like 2-3 different skills merged into one. They could have taken some of those skill ideas and slapped them on Core Necro Death Shroud, but no, we still have  an auto attack with ridiculous long cast time, snail-speed projectiles and pathetic damage while not even inflicting a single condition, not even cripple or vulnerability (for the latter, they honestly expect us to waste a trait on it). What did Specter get on Shroud 1? A projectile which deals damage, torment and buffs might, while having half the cast time of Life Blast (Death Shroud 1). Oh, and they can heal allies with it.

I'll do one more, just for the heck of it. Arguably the best skill in Core Death Shroud (Doom) simply inflicts fear, on a 20 s cooldown. Specter gets on skill #3: aoe fear, barrier and a leap finisher, all on 8 s cooldown. It would be really easy to fix Death Shroud skills. And apparently the devs do have the capability to invent new shroud skills which don't suck. But for arcane reasons, they chose not to.

I would have been perfectly happy had they just given the newest Necro e-spec the Shadow Shroud and have it's utilities be Glyphs whose flip skill you can use only during shroud. But instead we got Harbinger, whose shortcomings don't have to be repeated to the readers of this subforum and a Core Necro Shroud which still dates from 2013, i.e. ten years ago.

Edited November 26, 2023 by Seuchenherbst.2746
added something

[SeTect.5918]

No clue why some are saying harbinger would be too op in roaming.

It just has lots of builds it can counter. Necro in general has easy access to condi remove because of a trait in death magic which removes 1 condi every 3 sec while in shroud. Harbinger additionally has its hp Bar not replaced by shroud which means other players cant reduce your life force (which makes you able to stay in shroud for a longer time). It additionally has a condi cleanse elexir which is quite good.

90% of players run condi or cele in roaming and since harbinger has very good counter to condi its quite good against these.

But also harbinger has counters. Reaper and scourge both have it easier against power builds because of having more general defense (like barrier and shroud hp bar) and both have a strike damage reduction.

Harbinger also has pretty low access to stability or Blocks which makes it extremely vulnerable to builds with lots of CCs.

 

But yeah most roaming builds are full condi or cele without cc spam so harbinger counters these pretty well compared to scourge or reaper. It can also run better after fleeing enemies compared to scourge.

Tho normally if a *good* power bladesworn Shows up you are pretty screwed, but not lots of players play that build.

 

I wouldn't say its anywhere near willbender tho because willbender has far more burst, blocks, more mobility, a bit less condi cleanse, more defense against power builds, more boons (especially stability) and is also viable in zergs because being not 90% projectile based.

 

But a good harbinger can totally rip apart lots of condi or cele builds, i ll give you that.

Edited November 26, 2023 by SeTect.5918

[draxynnic.3719]

1 hour ago, SeTect.5918 said:

No clue why some are saying harbinger would be too op in roaming.

It just has lots of builds it can counter. Necro in general has easy access to condi remove because of a trait in death magic which removes 1 condi every 3 sec while in shroud. Harbinger additionally has its hp Bar not replaced by shroud which means other players cant reduce your life force (which makes you able to stay in shroud for a longer time). It additionally has a condi cleanse elexir which is quite good.

90% of players run condi or cele in roaming and since harbinger has very good counter to condi its quite good against these.

But also harbinger has counters. Reaper and scourge both have it easier against power builds because of having more general defense (like barrier and shroud hp bar) and both have a strike damage reduction.

Harbinger also has pretty low access to stability or Blocks which makes it extremely vulnerable to builds with lots of CCs.

 

But yeah most roaming builds are full condi or cele without cc spam so harbinger counters these pretty well compared to scourge or reaper. It can also run better after fleeing enemies compared to scourge.

Tho normally if a *good* power bladesworn Shows up you are pretty screwed, but not lots of players play that build.

 

I wouldn't say its anywhere near willbender tho because willbender has far more burst, blocks, more mobility, a bit less condi cleanse, more defense against power builds, more boons (especially stability) and is also viable in zergs because being not 90% projectile based.

 

But a good harbinger can totally rip apart lots of condi or cele builds, i ll give you that.

My experience fighting harbingers is that they have a repeating wide-area CC on a short cooldown - once you start being lifted, any stunbreak that doesn't move you out of the area or grant stability is just going to be wasted as you get lifted again in the next pulse. Other professions do have access to this sort of thing, but it's usually in the form of an elite skill with a long cooldown, while harbinger can do it every twenty seconds.

[SeTect.5918]

6 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

My experience fighting harbingers is that they have a repeating wide-area CC on a short cooldown - once you start being lifted, any stunbreak that doesn't move you out of the area or grant stability is just going to be wasted as you get lifted again in the next pulse. Other professions do have access to this sort of thing, but it's usually in the form of an elite skill with a long cooldown, while harbinger can do it every twenty seconds.

Yeah you can actually stunbreak and dodge out if you are fast because the ccs of that one have a longer interval than the one of lets say mesmer elite.

But i agree 20 seconds for that is kinda short since that skill helped me to get pretty easy kills in past. 

Still nowhere close to willbender imo. Harbinger lacks too many things that willbender has to come close to it.

Edited November 27, 2023 by SeTect.5918

[draxynnic.3719]

4 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Yeah you can actually stunbreak and dodge out if you are fast because the ccs of that one have a longer interval than the one of lets say mesmer elite.

But i agree 20 seconds for that is kinda short since that skill helped me to get pretty easy kills in past. 

Still nowhere close to willbender imo. Harbinger lacks too many things that willbender has to come close to it.

You can do that with chronos and spectres if you time it just right, but that's easier said than done, especially if you have a bit of latency. The difference is that with the others, if you do survive it one way or another, than outside of a chronomancer split you're safe from it for a minute or so. With the harbinger, it's likely to come off cooldown before your stunbreak does.

In sPvP, I've generally found harbingers more obnoxious than willbenders. WvW roaming might be different in that respect since durability is generally higher there.