The nerf arrived

[KrHome.1920]

Necromancer:

• Signet of Undeath: Reduced passive life force gained per interval from 4% to 2% in PvP only.
• Signet of Vampirism: Reduced passive base heal when struck from 325 to 211 in PvP only.
• Unholy Martyr: Reduced life force per condition consumed from 7% to 3% in PvP only.
• Death's Carapace: Reduced toughness per stack from 20 to 10 in PvP only.
• Lich Form: Reduced duration from 20 seconds to 10 seconds in PvP only.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/98220/game-update-notes-february-25-2020#latest

Revenant and Guardian have been "hotfix"-nerfed too.

[Rickster.8752]

A few thoughts:1, Signet of undeath is unplayable now. Like totally worthless2, Unholy martyr is also really bad now for chaining death shroud however this only matters if you already have a bit of death shroud because eternal life will bump you up anyway, so this nerf isn't as bad as it looks.3, Death magic line was all about carapace and now its effectiveness has been cut in half. This is pretty devastating to the death magic line. THIS NERFED 7 TRAITS BY 50% in a single swoop. Do not underestimate how huge this nerf is. They destroyed an entire trait line with this single change.4, Lich nerf is huge. 10 seconds is very little time and swirling winds/absorb/reflect type effects are more effective against this now5, Vampirism signet is now worthless. Totally worthless.

So yeh, these are big nerfs. The signets are just totally dumpstered and not playable. The martyr nerf doesn't matter much. And carapace is now A LOT worse which means the whole death magic line is now a lot worse. Life siphon is untouched though. Blood magic is probably better than death magic now.

[Axl.8924]

Before we freak, lets test it out, alright? lets test it out. This was totally going to come, it was overtuned.

[Lordrosicky.5813]

@Axl.8924 said:Before we freak, lets test it out, alright? lets test it out. This was totally going to come, it was overtuned.

Yeh but 50% nerf to the entire death magic trait line....that line is dead now.Blood magic also provides much less sustain as martyr will give 12% life force everytime.

[KrHome.1920]

The signets have ever been worthless untraited - nothing changed here. But traited now vamprism heals for 320 when hit and undeath grants 3% life force. So even traited that barely justifies picking both at all.

The carapace nerf is a mixed bag. It nerfs the whole traitline but since the direct damage in pvp is extremely low, even 10 toughness will still have an impact.

The lich nerf is good. 20s was way (!) too long. I was confused when I first read about the duration a few days ago. Thought that was a wrong tooltip....

Unholy martyr saw a good nerf. Historically that trait granted that much life force because it worked like plague signet and could kill you when you pulled conditions. But we've seen some reworks since then and necro now has more condi cleanse options in shroud. So that the benefit of the trait is nerfed seems legit.

[Axl.8924]

Necro was gonna get nerfed. You are lucky we didn't take bigger nerfs.

One guy wanted to give unholy martyr 300 sec cd

[ElderNewt.5840]

Either we become OP or nerfed back down to the grave. Very few times have we had a justified balance.The fate of the Necromancer class.

[Flumek.9043]

The good thing is Anet said they can easily adjust numbers. Meaning we got nerfed from good to meh medium.

The bad thing is Anet said they cant easily change functionality, meaning FB spamming CCs and 5x condies stays, and our slow cast and animations will also stay.

Was a good week,cya in 2 years again :)

[EremiteAngel.9765]

@Flumek.9043 said:The good thing is Anet said they can easily adjust numbers. Meaning we got nerfed from good to meh medium.

The bad thing is Anet said they cant easily change functionality, meaning FB spamming CCs and 5x condies stays, and our slow cast and animations will also stay.

Was a good week,cya in 2 years again :)

Oh wait...they didn't fix the rangers rugged growth healing bug yet in WvW...

[draxynnic.3719]

Looking at it...

I'm kinda hoping that they haven't been letting the tail wag the dog with the Lich Form nerf. It was pretty darn oppressive in 2v2, because 2v2 rounds typically last about a minute anyway, but once we go back to Conquest I'm not convinced 10s is going to be enough for it to have the impact it should. Maybe it could have a shorter recharge to compensate, but still...

[Stand The Wall.6987]

meh, my build is fine. blood gm wasn't even over performing. vamp sig is still fine traited. they nerfed carapace for some reason when its clear unholy martyr was the culprit.. classic anet still it could have been much worse. big LOL they didn't even address lich autos. undeath sig deserved the nerf for sure, but its still a great res.

[KrHome.1920]

Pretty sure the lich form auto was untouched because core overall got a lot more vulnerable, which results in being a lot more vulnerable in lich form too.

You either pop lich right at the beginning of the match with full health but also full defenses on your target (blocks, reflects, disengages...) or in the middle of the fight when your target is more vulnerable but you are not at full health anymore after this patch, so that lich can comfortably be bursted down.

If they had nerfed the duration and the auto, then the skill would most likely be overnerfed and every duo could just facetank and burst it in 3 seconds (= 3 attacks for about 3k damage = laughable)

[Nimon.7840]

Would have liked to see a tune down of burn guards in wvw.It's like the only class for Zerg play, that's dmg is way over the topAnd you can even play core, dragongunter or firebrand. All do equally good.

As well as no nerf to thief. - permastealth is still a thing, mobility way too high (no way to catch a thief with any other class than a thief).

Before the patch you could at least burst them, but that's not possible anymore for a lot of classes.Especially necro is completely useless now in my opinion.If you play zerker, that might have a chance to oneshot the thief, he will just backstab you for 9-16k dmg, which makes you begin the fight with half health or less.And if you somehow manage to bring them down to half health or less, they just run away, reset, come again, and by that time you're low on lifeforce on most bursty builds

[Infusion.7149]

Lich Form could have had reduced auto attack damage (2.34 coefficient is really high) because of the additional 1000 precision and a lower cooldown. Right now it has several weaknesses: counter burst, weakness/blind (if not dropping conditions from teammate rev/firebrand/druid/ etc), reflect (the auto), etc. Unholy Sanctuary makes it far less risky than it would be normally (see warrior rampage with 10s duration).

Unholy Martyr affects me more than the Lich form nerf since I usually play core condi necro in 5v5 when I'm on necro because it seems people spam condis but somehow your teammates don't like to pack cleanses or wait for them to stack up quite high despite not having a bulk cleanse (spellbreaker "Shake it off" /scrapper Elixir Gun+Purge gyro/guardians' mantra of lore or contemplation of purity).

[Kuulpb.5412]

@"Rickster.8752" said:A few thoughts:1, Signet of undeath is unplayable now. Like totally worthless2, Unholy martyr is also really bad now for chaining death shroud however this only matters if you already have a bit of death shroud because eternal life will bump you up anyway, so this nerf isn't as bad as it looks.3, Death magic line was all about carapace and now its effectiveness has been cut in half. This is pretty devastating to the death magic line. THIS NERFED 7 TRAITS BY 50% in a single swoop. Do not underestimate how huge this nerf is. They destroyed an entire trait line with this single change.4, Lich nerf is huge. 10 seconds is very little time and swirling winds/absorb/reflect type effects are more effective against this now5, Vampirism signet is now worthless. Totally worthless.

So yeh, these are big nerfs. The signets are just totally dumpstered and not playable. The martyr nerf doesn't matter much. And carapace is now A LOT worse which means the whole death magic line is now a lot worse. Life siphon is untouched though. Blood magic is probably better than death magic now.

In my opinion -

Signet of undeath was Unplayable when it got reworked, Signets are meant for their actives not passives, and that signet was ONLY used for its passive,Can't speak about unholy martyr too much, but I feel eternal life's "Life force" is useless when it replaced a stunbreak.Again - Death magic I feel got nerfed when it got reworked as carapace is such an odd mechanic.Sadly can't speak about Lich form too much, wasn't a fan of it.Agree

[Levijeh.9643]

I love the nerfs. Cogratulations anet.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@KrHome.1920 said:snips

if you're running a tanky build then yes, there is little threat. a 2.36 coefficient 1200 range auto attack is a pretty ridiculous thing to defend.

[KrHome.1920]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:snips

if you're running a tanky build then yes, there is little threat. a 2.36 coefficient 1200 range auto attack is a pretty ridiculous thing to defend.The non-tanky builds should not be a problem right from the start. If this was the case then lich form should have been overpowered in 1v1 for years now, which it has never been. The opposite was the case.

The issue has beeen the combination of a tanky necro that can't be killed while being able to pop a hard hitting lich at any time of the match.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@KrHome.1920 said:The non-tanky builds should not be a problem right from the start. If this was the case then lich form should have been overpowered in 1v1 for years now, which it has never been. The opposite was the case.

The issue has beeen the combination of a tanky necro that can't be killed while being able to pop a hard hitting lich at any time of the match.

so being able to wipe a team cuz they don't have any projectile block is ok? yeah sounds great.

[KrHome.1920]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:The non-tanky builds should not be a problem right from the start. If this was the case then lich form should have been overpowered in 1v1 for years now, which it has never been. The opposite was the case.

The issue has beeen the combination of a tanky necro that can't be killed while being able to pop a hard hitting lich at any time of the match.

so being able to wipe a team cuz they don't have any projectile block is ok? yeah sounds great.Wiping whole teams.... sure. Of which division are we talking at this point? Clearly not plat and most likely not even gold.

If you still can't kill a bunker necro after that patch then it's hopeless. I could do it before (yes, in a boring attrition fight, but the necro died at the end) and now it's a walk in the park.

Bunker necro was not worse than bunker weaver or boonbeast, which I duelled tons of. Maybe that's the reason I have no problem with these kind of builds. The fight takes so long that you have a million opportunities to adapt to his rotation and try different things to break it. And you will be rewarded at the end.

Someone posted a video recently where he as a power mirage (yes that build everybody calls not viable anymore, the necro damage is that low that you do only need one dodge) teamed with a dragonhunter did fight a bunker necro and weaver combo. They did exactly what I said: tried different strategies, target switches at critical moments and hardfocussed the necro at the right time. And they won. And that has been before (!) the patch yesterday.

[Ghos.1326]

These nerfs were warranted. Life force generation was way too high. Necros are still tanky, just now not forever tanky.Good nerfs.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@KrHome.1920 said:Wiping whole teams.... sure. Of which division are we talking at this point? Clearly not plat and most likely not even gold.

so if ppl do it in lower tiers its ok.

editcan run reaper and grab unblockable shout and mow down most ppl. its retarded and doesn't belong in the game.

[Shroud.2307]

I'm not happy with the way these things were changed, but I'm glad it was done. That build was disgusting. I'm also happy the right things were targeted instead of directly nerfing Shroud or Life Force gain or something.

Big nerfs but I'm still happy.

[dceptaconroy.7928]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:Wiping whole teams.... sure. Of which division are we talking at this point? Clearly not plat and most likely not even gold.

so if ppl do it in lower tiers its ok.

editcan run reaper and grab unblockable shout and mow down most ppl. its kitten and doesn't belong in the game.

Reaper mowing down most people..is that what you see happening right now? Are you successful running a burst reaper in this current meta?

[Axl.8924]

Reaper ATM is very hardcore and I have trouble beating necro the most on the ranger. The only way I can do anything is run away on ranger hope and pray I can get enough room and make the reaper lose interest so I can start ranging him outta reaper shroud to kite him or stall to get more friends to +1 him down.

core necro with that summon madness thing is insane really strong combined with blasts on the lich

Doesn't mean they are unbeatable, they just real strong.