Balance patch 3rd of December

LucianDK.8615 · December 9, 2019

@Nimon.7840 said:
@Dadnir.5038 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@"LucianDK.8615" said:Seems Snowcrows actually likes Signet of Undeath for condition scourges.
https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/necromancer/scourge/condition/

Because it generates more lifeforce than minions do

Well they keep the minion. I think it's more that they estimate that spamming F skills is more effective than using utility skills to deal damage with the scourge. The rotation heavily focus on squeezing dhuumfire potential damage to the max. Granted that the scourge's utility skill's damage potential heavily rely on having boons to corrupt, it's not a bad idea. (Thought the final result isn't transcendent with a dps potential at 29k)

No they don't.Before the patch, boneminions were the most effective.And if you need epi, which is the only reason to bring scourge even after these minor buffs, you still need to swap something out.

Best build on single targets dps went fromFull viper with lichrune and boneminions,bip, shadow fiend to:Full viper with Ele rune, bip, shadow fiend, signet

Which one would you say to swap out for Epidemic when needed? And you dont go out of your way to work with sadistic searing now?

ZDragon.3046 · December 9, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Overall it’s a slight slight nerf for unholy sanctuary. 1% in competitive is 200 health on 20k health target... which is basically the same as it is now except it doesn’t scale with healing power anymore. For pve it’ll be nice but it’s still very low impact change.how did you come up with this

Base before was about 130 hp per second (no healing power) - this is weaker than base boon regen healing by the way in a grand master slot)Base after is about 191 hp per second (no extra vitality)

When you really look at what healing power does for necromancer (not very much) there are not many skills healing power scales well with to make it overly worth taking outside of blood well and maybe transfusion or barriers on scourge there really is nothing that shines with additional healing power.

how on earth is this a nerf?Look at what stat combos offer healing power on current amulets. Off the top of my head I cant think of single trait to ammy combo that makes the previous version of unholy look better when you compare it with the combos of vitality scaling thats common for necromancers to take. Combos with Vitality have much more viability for necromancer than stat combos with healing power in pvp imo with the odd ball being like heal scourge on sage or something. but in that case you wouldnt run death magic. (i dont think)

In any case C fervor is still over kill because its the main trait that makes 2 of the other traits you would look at in the line even have a good chance of always being active so... i mean... i just dont get it.

imo this is the direction they should have taken death magic from the start with traits that just work and not traits that depend on stacking something else to make them work. is nice to have something you know just always performs in a certain way.

ZDragon.3046 · December 9, 2019

@LucianDK.8615 said:
@RisenHowl.2419 said:SoU is going to be solid when traited for sustain builds. 6% per 3s=2% per second. Core necro drains 3% per second and reaper drains 5%, with the signet those drop to 1% & 3% per second adding a lot of sustain to shroud

Might be difficult to give up Close to Death for Signets of Suffering. But in theory you could get in more soul spirals as a Reaper, yes? Plus you gain an additional 90 power for Signet of Spite.

This would be very inefficient in long fights as after 10 seconds you lose your soul barbs bonsus so no only do you give up 20% damage post 50% hp on the target you also start losing massive up time on soul barbs which is another 10% damage loss. Perma shrouding should not be the focus behind this. Lets also not forget that to take undeath you also lose another utility slot meaning you lost even more potential damage depending on the encounter idea.. undeath is not good for reaper pve if you want to get the most bang for you buck. That said its great for scourge

LucianDK.8615 · December 9, 2019

@ZDragon.3046 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:
@RisenHowl.2419 said:SoU is going to be solid when traited for sustain builds. 6% per 3s=2% per second. Core necro drains 3% per second and reaper drains 5%, with the signet those drop to 1% & 3% per second adding a lot of sustain to shroud

Might be difficult to give up Close to Death for Signets of Suffering. But in theory you could get in more soul spirals as a Reaper, yes? Plus you gain an additional 90 power for Signet of Spite.

This would be very inefficient in long fights as after 10 seconds you lose your soul barbs bonsus so no only do you give up 20% damage post 50% hp on the target you also start losing massive up time on soul barbs which is another 10% damage loss. Perma shrouding should not be the focus behind this. Lets also not forget that to take undeath you also lose another utility slot meaning you lost even more potential damage depending on the encounter idea.. undeath is not good for reaper pve if you want to get the most bang for you buck. That said its great for scourge

Ive understood that now, and moved to Scourge.

Nimon.7840 · December 10, 2019

@LucianDK.8615 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@Dadnir.5038 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:Seems Snowcrows actually likes Signet of Undeath for condition scourges.
https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/necromancer/scourge/condition/

Because it generates more lifeforce than minions do

Well they keep the minion. I think it's more that they estimate that spamming F skills is more effective than using utility skills to deal damage with the scourge. The rotation heavily focus on squeezing dhuumfire potential damage to the max. Granted that the scourge's utility skill's damage potential heavily rely on having boons to corrupt, it's not a bad idea. (Thought the final result isn't transcendent with a dps potential at 29k)

No they don't.Before the patch, boneminions were the most effective.And if you need epi, which is the only reason to bring scourge even after these minor buffs, you still need to swap something out.

Best build on single targets dps went fromFull viper with lichrune and boneminions,bip, shadow fiend to:Full viper with Ele rune, bip, shadow fiend, signet

Which one would you say to swap out for Epidemic when needed? And you dont go out of your way to work with sadistic searing now?

Well.Typical scourge build would be scourge 2-1-2 now.Sadistic searing only in fights where you definitely know, that yourg group is going to take a big hit (for example soulless horror facetanking the double ae or mursaat overseer tanking the explosion of the add)Now what do we swap out.Setup:Sand flare/ blood fiend - sand flare gives you the option to proc sadistic searing, and that's pretty easy to use now, as you can spam f1 without having to worry about shade uptime. Bloodfiend does overall more dps than sand flare with sadistic searing so, more group support vs "more" personal dps

Blood is power - best Condi dmg utility skill

Shadow fiend/signet of undeath/ epidemic

So as single targets dps, we are playing shadow fiend + signetBut what to do if we need the cleave?

This really depends on some factors. But is personal preference in my opinion:Shadow fiend: offers soft cc, dps and 30% lifeforce per minuteSignet: 60s/3s= 20 procs = 20x4%= 80% lifeforce so if you can make sure, that you are pretty good in making use of dhuumfire this might be the better choice.

However:Deaths still generate lifeforce as well, and with epi you want to kill those adds, that's why you take epi.

To give a general:" that's better because..." Isn't possible in my opinion.

It really depends on the encounter.On mursaat overseer, I'd take signet for example, because the adds don't respawn frequently enoughOn xera I'd take shadow fiend, as there a quite a few adds spawning

Also keep in mind, that signet offers a pretty fast ranged Rez.

LucianDK.8615 · December 10, 2019

@Nimon.7840 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@Dadnir.5038 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:Seems Snowcrows actually likes Signet of Undeath for condition scourges.
https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/necromancer/scourge/condition/

Because it generates more lifeforce than minions do

Well they keep the minion. I think it's more that they estimate that spamming F skills is more effective than using utility skills to deal damage with the scourge. The rotation heavily focus on squeezing dhuumfire potential damage to the max. Granted that the scourge's utility skill's damage potential heavily rely on having boons to corrupt, it's not a bad idea. (Thought the final result isn't transcendent with a dps potential at 29k)

No they don't.Before the patch, boneminions were the most effective.And if you need epi, which is the only reason to bring scourge even after these minor buffs, you still need to swap something out.

Best build on single targets dps went fromFull viper with lichrune and boneminions,bip, shadow fiend to:Full viper with Ele rune, bip, shadow fiend, signet

Which one would you say to swap out for Epidemic when needed? And you dont go out of your way to work with sadistic searing now?

Well.Typical scourge build would be scourge 2-1-2 now.Sadistic searing only in fights where you definitely know, that yourg group is going to take a big hit (for example soulless horror facetanking the double ae or mursaat overseer tanking the explosion of the add)Now what do we swap out.Setup:Sand flare/ blood fiend - sand flare gives you the option to proc sadistic searing, and that's pretty easy to use now, as you can spam f1 without having to worry about shade uptime. Bloodfiend does overall more dps than sand flare with sadistic searing so, more group support vs "more" personal dps

Blood is power - best Condi dmg utility skill

Shadow fiend/signet of undeath/ epidemic

So as single targets dps, we are playing shadow fiend + signetBut what to do if we need the cleave?

This really depends on some factors. But is personal preference in my opinion:Shadow fiend: offers soft cc, dps and 30% lifeforce per minuteSignet: 60s/3s= 20 procs = 20x4%= 80% lifeforce so if you can make sure, that you are pretty good in making use of dhuumfire this might be the better choice.

However:Deaths still generate lifeforce as well, and with epi you want to kill those adds, that's why you take epi.

To give a general:" that's better because..." Isn't possible in my opinion.

It really depends on the encounter.On mursaat overseer, I'd take signet for example, because the adds don't respawn frequently enoughOn xera I'd take shadow fiend, as there a quite a few adds spawning

Also keep in mind, that signet offers a pretty fast ranged Rez.

Mind explaining this bit? I am not wholly sure what you are saying.Typical scourge build would be scourge 2-1-2 now.Sadistic searing only in fights where you definitely know, that yourg group is going to take a big hit (for example soulless horror facetanking the double ae or mursaat overseer tanking the explosion of the add)

Wouldnt the barrier be better on exactly that?

And yes, Sadistic Searing have lost Value now that you use 1 punishment.

Nimon.7840 · December 10, 2019

@LucianDK.8615 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@Dadnir.5038 said:
@Nimon.7840 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:Seems Snowcrows actually likes Signet of Undeath for condition scourges.
https://snowcrows.com/raids/builds/necromancer/scourge/condition/

Because it generates more lifeforce than minions do

Well they keep the minion. I think it's more that they estimate that spamming F skills is more effective than using utility skills to deal damage with the scourge. The rotation heavily focus on squeezing dhuumfire potential damage to the max. Granted that the scourge's utility skill's damage potential heavily rely on having boons to corrupt, it's not a bad idea. (Thought the final result isn't transcendent with a dps potential at 29k)

No they don't.Before the patch, boneminions were the most effective.And if you need epi, which is the only reason to bring scourge even after these minor buffs, you still need to swap something out.

Best build on single targets dps went fromFull viper with lichrune and boneminions,bip, shadow fiend to:Full viper with Ele rune, bip, shadow fiend, signet

Which one would you say to swap out for Epidemic when needed? And you dont go out of your way to work with sadistic searing now?

Well.Typical scourge build would be scourge 2-1-2 now.Sadistic searing only in fights where you definitely know, that yourg group is going to take a big hit (for example soulless horror facetanking the double ae or mursaat overseer tanking the explosion of the add)Now what do we swap out.Setup:Sand flare/ blood fiend - sand flare gives you the option to proc sadistic searing, and that's pretty easy to use now, as you can spam f1 without having to worry about shade uptime. Bloodfiend does overall more dps than sand flare with sadistic searing so, more group support vs "more" personal dps

Blood is power - best Condi dmg utility skill

Shadow fiend/signet of undeath/ epidemic

So as single targets dps, we are playing shadow fiend + signetBut what to do if we need the cleave?

This really depends on some factors. But is personal preference in my opinion:Shadow fiend: offers soft cc, dps and 30% lifeforce per minuteSignet: 60s/3s= 20 procs = 20x4%= 80% lifeforce so if you can make sure, that you are pretty good in making use of dhuumfire this might be the better choice.

However:Deaths still generate lifeforce as well, and with epi you want to kill those adds, that's why you take epi.

To give a general:" that's better because..." Isn't possible in my opinion.

It really depends on the encounter.On mursaat overseer, I'd take signet for example, because the adds don't respawn frequently enoughOn xera I'd take shadow fiend, as there a quite a few adds spawning

Also keep in mind, that signet offers a pretty fast ranged Rez.

Mind explaining this bit? I am not wholly sure what you are saying.Typical scourge build would be scourge 2-1-2 now.Sadistic searing only in fights where you definitely know, that yourg group is going to take a big hit (for example soulless horror facetanking the double ae or mursaat overseer tanking the explosion of the add)

Wouldnt the barrier be better on exactly that?

And yes, Sadistic Searing have lost Value now that you use 1 punishment.

This is the "new" meta build (klick me) (single targets dps) for scourgeYou can still play the old scourge build, the new one adds like 500-1k dps to the old benchmark but the old one needs less skill

However to the build: you can switch out blood fiend, if your group needs some big barriers in some fights.If you do so, take sadistic searing, so your heal also adds a bit of dps.

I'd recommend doing that on some bosses, if your group sometimes fails mechanics.Such as the explosion from the adds at mursaat overseer fight for exampleSame goes for the soulless horror fight, where you can block quite a good amount of dmg when cc phase starts or when she does her ae into donut ae thing.

I did the air dude in w7 yesterday, there I wouldn't recommend playing with sand flare as heal, and play the build I posted, as it offers more "constant" barrier and the boss doesn't really have one big attack, that you might want to block with barrier.

Now to the epidemic dilemma:

Shadow fiend: adds dps from it's attacks, lf generation as well as soft ccSignet of undeath: adds lf generation (much more than shadow fiend) and you have an emergency revive with the active. More dps comes from managing you f-abilities more to proc dhuumfire

You see, both have positive aspects.

If there's no constant deaths from adds at the boss fight and there's no more cc needed, I'd recommend using the signet (blood is power, signet, epi) to get better lifeforce income

On bosses with more adds spawning, where you basically epi of cooldown, I'd use shadow fiend. You should get a lot of lifeforce from the enemy deaths and you can then max out dps with the minion.I'd use this probably on sabetha. There's constantly spawning adds that need to be killed.

Was that enough explanation?

LucianDK.8615 · December 10, 2019

I asume you only are looking to max bleed duration, yes?I noticed that snowcrows have two expertise infusions compared to yours. You reach 100% bleed duration with beef rendang food and 3 shades without 2 expertise infusions.

Also, any reason you use x2 scepters with sigil of earth? If you just have one, weaponswap will just flip the offhand. Wouldnt it be more beneficial to have sigil of bursting on the scepter, and flipping between sigil of torment and sigil of earth on the offhand torches?

Nimon.7840 · December 11, 2019

@LucianDK.8615 said:I asume you only are looking to max bleed duration, yes?I noticed that snowcrows have two expertise infusions compared to yours. You reach 100% bleed duration with beef rendang food and 3 shades without 2 expertise infusions.
Also, any reason you use x2 scepters with sigil of earth? If you just have one, weaponswap will just flip the offhand. Wouldnt it be more beneficial to have sigil of bursting on the scepter, and flipping between sigil of torment and sigil of earth on the offhand torches?

The build is fine. I just put in 2 scepters that it doesn't seem like I loose stats (build editor thing)

And I already talked to majestic noodle, who is doing the necro benchmarks for snowcrows.Just go full malign infusions.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · December 11, 2019

@ZDragon.3046 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Overall it’s a slight slight nerf for unholy sanctuary. 1% in competitive is 200 health on 20k health target... which is basically the same as it is now except it doesn’t scale with healing power anymore. For pve it’ll be nice but it’s still very low impact change.how did you come up with this

Base before was about 130 hp per second (no healing power) - this is weaker than base boon regen healing by the way in a grand master slot)Base after is about 191 hp per second (no extra vitality)

When you really look at what healing power does for necromancer (not very much) there are not many skills healing power scales well with to make it overly worth taking outside of blood well and maybe transfusion or barriers on scourge there really is nothing that shines with additional healing power.

how on earth is this a nerf?Look at what stat combos offer healing power on current amulets. Off the top of my head I cant think of single trait to ammy combo that makes the previous version of unholy look better when you compare it with the combos of vitality scaling thats common for necromancers to take. Combos with Vitality have much more viability for necromancer than stat combos with healing power in pvp imo with the odd ball being like heal scourge on sage or something. but in that case you wouldnt run death magic. (i dont think)

In any case C fervor is still over kill because its the main trait that makes 2 of the other traits you would look at in the line even have a good chance of always being active so... i mean... i just dont get it.

imo this is the direction they should have taken death magic from the start with traits that just work and not traits that depend on stacking something else to make them work. is nice to have something you know just always performs in a certain way.

I see it as a nerf because of the relationship between vitality and healing...in other words this skill will always heal 1% of your health, whether you have 50,000 heath or 20,000 health. It’s always 1%.

With healing power it can heal more per unit of health which makes healing power a better candidate when grouped with toughness. For example, x amount of healing power could heal you for 400 for 20k health (2% of total health). If you have toughness (which is what deathmagic is based on) that 400 health means more to you.

Now it’s not really a nerf...or a buff. They just “moved things around” which is a fairly typical balance tactic they’ve been using of late for elementalist. It hasn’t impacted the trait that much or made it any better of a choice over the other traits.

LucianDK.8615 · December 11, 2019

@Nimon.7840 said:
@LucianDK.8615 said:I asume you only are looking to max bleed duration, yes?I noticed that snowcrows have two expertise infusions compared to yours. You reach 100% bleed duration with beef rendang food and 3 shades without 2 expertise infusions.
Also, any reason you use x2 scepters with sigil of earth? If you just have one, weaponswap will just flip the offhand. Wouldnt it be more beneficial to have sigil of bursting on the scepter, and flipping between sigil of torment and sigil of earth on the offhand torches?

The build is fine. I just put in 2 scepters that it doesn't seem like I loose stats (build editor thing)

And I already talked to majestic noodle, who is doing the necro benchmarks for snowcrows.Just go full malign infusions.

Would you kindly elaborate on the sigils? I guess a torch with bursting is taken on swap due to the longer icd on torment if i understood it right. 5s for torment, vs 2s for bleeding. So torment is the one on swap. But does it give that much to have a bursting torch on swap?

ZDragon.3046 · December 11, 2019

@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@ZDragon.3046 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Overall it’s a slight slight nerf for unholy sanctuary. 1% in competitive is 200 health on 20k health target... which is basically the same as it is now except it doesn’t scale with healing power anymore. For pve it’ll be nice but it’s still very low impact change.how did you come up with this

Base before was about 130 hp per second (no healing power) - this is weaker than base boon regen healing by the way in a grand master slot)Base after is about 191 hp per second (no extra vitality)

When you really look at what healing power does for necromancer (not very much) there are not many skills healing power scales well with to make it overly worth taking outside of blood well and maybe transfusion or barriers on scourge there really is nothing that shines with additional healing power.

how on earth is this a nerf?Look at what stat combos offer healing power on current amulets. Off the top of my head I cant think of single trait to ammy combo that makes the previous version of unholy look better when you compare it with the combos of vitality scaling thats common for necromancers to take. Combos with Vitality have much more viability for necromancer than stat combos with healing power in pvp imo with the odd ball being like heal scourge on sage or something. but in that case you wouldnt run death magic. (i dont think)

In any case C fervor is still over kill because its the main trait that makes 2 of the other traits you would look at in the line even have a good chance of always being active so... i mean... i just dont get it.

imo this is the direction they should have taken death magic from the start with traits that just work and not traits that depend on stacking something else to make them work. is nice to have something you know just always performs in a certain way.

I see it as a nerf because of the relationship between vitality and healing...in other words this skill will always heal 1% of your health, whether you have 50,000 heath or 20,000 health. It’s always 1%.

With healing power it can heal more per unit of health which makes healing power a better candidate when grouped with toughness. For example, x amount of healing power could heal you for 400 for 20k health (2% of total health). If you have toughness (which is what deathmagic is based on) that 400 health means more to you.

I understand this concept but its not very realistic based on the previous traits base + increased scale from healing power. This example ideally just could never happen (with what pvp stats offer) so its not very valid

The amount of healing power you needed to even get close to realistically achieving a 400 hp per second return with the previous version. Even if you took as much healing power as possible not only would it be janking up your build to do so it would be a total waste of investment. I recall maxing out healing power in pvp just to test how much it would heal before and the trait never came close to 400 per second im thinking it was around the 300 range with over kill investment of healing power. It was just bad in general.

Not to mention as a self sustain grandmaster trait (many other professions have these) they often dont require the investment of healing power to make them decent for the user. The fact that when the trait had healing power stacked on top of it and it was still severely under powered for self sustain made it have no purpose. At least now its base is stronger.

By no means is the old version better (so long as its scaling was set that low). Vitality is just a more commonly used stat especially with the idea of investing more in self defensive stats which makes the trait more flexible and effective than it was before. Not stronger than C Fervor, but thats not because of C Fervor thats because half the rest of the line depends on C Fervor to remain active which imo is bad design.

By all means if they wanted it that way C Fervor should have been one of the Minors. Not a selectable option.

JusticeRetroHunter.7684 · December 11, 2019

@ZDragon.3046 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:
@ZDragon.3046 said:
@JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:Overall it’s a slight slight nerf for unholy sanctuary. 1% in competitive is 200 health on 20k health target... which is basically the same as it is now except it doesn’t scale with healing power anymore. For pve it’ll be nice but it’s still very low impact change.how did you come up with this