What's your thoughts on the upcoming balance changes?

[Swadow.6213]

It is really weird these changes when it comes to Necro.

 

Necromancer was one of the first ones to receive Torment and it was synergistic with Fear, making it most necromancer focused condition there was. Now with the Torment changed to behave exactly the opposite, Necromancer is one of the worst to use the condition and Scourge is just filled with Torment. These changes feel completely from the perspective of someone who sees only world bosses and large raid/strike bossses that do not move at all completely forgetting that anything else exists.

 

I fear that the Blood Bank change is going to cause problems within PvP making ArenaNet do a major overreaction after like 2 days this patch hits to nerf it and a lot of other things around it.

 

The curses changes are just whatever, Insidious Disruption has been and always will be a waste of a trait due to how rare CC actually is, and again with Torment change it makes no sense for Necromancer to have Torment since Fear is counter synergistic with it.

 

Lich Form 1 fix is a long time coming and all the stuff hitting behind the player should be getting same treatment

[wolfsblut.9435]

We will have to wait and see if a feared opponent counts as a moving target or not.

After all I like all changes that lead to more gameplay ...apply torment...knock down opponent...and such.

[slave to the grind.5028]

A feared opponent is in motion, so yes, he is moving...

[killfil.3472]

Surprised Lich Form wasn't removed and replaced with something else.

It is the subject of a lot of complains, and not without reasons.

I'd rather it be replaced with a tweaked version of its 5th skill ; "Grim Specter".

[Nimon.7840]

21 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I don't think the changes really cause me to rethink how I'm playing Necro and my builds. I think the addition to Blood Bank was necessary .. but 15% of healing received is still a pretty small barrier. Again, that change feels like lots of WvW zerg love, but not much else. 

 

I can see how Mark of Evasion without an ICD will be something that can be abused in a non-condi build for Blood Bond triggering. Overall, Blood Magic is slightly more appealing in PVE but not sure it's enough. 

 

Yes it can be abused, but only in pve. if you double dodge in pvp/wvw in 1vs1 fights prepare to get locked down forever and bursted even though you have a pretty high health pool.

 

21 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It's a small improvement specific to Necromancers but the Torment changes should push it toward viability in most areas where the boss is stationary.
It's an indirect nerf to PVP/WVW necromancers running condi.

 

yeah, you dont have a lot of options on necro to force the enemy to stand still. dagger 3 (3seconds immob), torch 5 (2seconds knockdown), fleshgolem, and bonefiend. problem is, that only one of these skills is good on a condi scourge. you might not want to play dagger mainhand (yeah i crafted a build with it already to try) and minions arent really good either in wvw.

 

4 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

My predictions:

- Condi Scourge will go over 30k dps in PvE.

- Blood Bank will be overpowered in the competitive modes.

 

definetly yes. i think we might bench around 32-34k dps.
blood bank will extremely help reaper out in wvw (it already does, but it will be even better), even though its still not on the same level as scourge for big zergs (thats definetly different for smaller guild groups).


overall i think we necro mains cant complain.
- a small buff to reaper (soulbarbs affecting conditions as well -> poison from spin to win - will only be a very small increase, you might not even notice) - i whish there would be a little bit more
- big buff for pve scourge (torment change, + bleed increase + condi modifier) even though this might completely overpower the deathmagic condi scourge build now
- nerf for condi scourge in pvp/wvw
- maybe a small buff to core necro in pvp/wvw (now it makes sense, that shroud 5 applies torment and then immobilizes)

Things im not quite sure about:

how will the interaction between  traited fear (terror: fear now does damage) and resolution/resistance work.

resolution:

will it reduce the incoming damage from fear? - fear is an movement impairing condition and therefore only affected by resistance. - most likely the fear damage will be reduced, but you still get feared away.
 

resistance:

resistance now only affects movement impairing conditions. so you ignore fear while having resistance, but will you still get the damage? - you should at least
 

[Glott.7239]

I would agree that Necro is in an overall good spot as far as balance goes but i think what most people wanted out if this patch is not balance but rather a shake up. The meta has been very stale for almost 2 years now and since this patch was somewhat advertised as the "Big Per EoD preperation Patch" most Players, including me, expected more "New Stuff" maybe not on he level of the Per HoT Spezialisation update but more overhauls rather than number tweeks.

 

For Necro i think it suffers from a lot of "pseudo-synergy", skills and triats that seem like they should work well together at first glance but when you try it they just suck. For example: "Necromantic Corruption + Plague Signet" or "Terror + Fear of Death", also some Traits are just outclassed by there competition, especially in Blood Magic or Curses.

 

Another problem is the lag of decent offhand weapon options for PvE, other that Torche. Mostly you see Warhorn for the odd CC now but as of this patch "Wail of Doom" is now just a worse "Call of the Wild". Focus does next to nothing in most of PvE, same as Dagger because boons on enemeys and conditions from them are rather rare and if you do encounter them there are often better ways to deal with them. This also drags down the corresponding traits, "Banshee's Wail", "Quickening Thirst" and "Spiteful Talisman", the last only really seeing play because of it's 10% damage modifier. The other 2, beeing both in the Blood Magic line, are also outclassed by "Ritual of Life" and "Vampiric Presence".

 

Last but not least. Minnons are very lackluster and even just an update to there AI and responsiveness or giving the Player a little more control over there behavior, maybe with (better) flip over skills, would go a long way. Let me also note that Minions are suffering from the exact same problem that Mantras did before in that it's very annoying having to resummon them on a map change or, in case of Bone Minnons, after you use there active skill or even just if they get killed by AoEs. Jagged Horros summond by "Death Nova" even still disappear into nothingness when you mount up.

 

Sorry for the wall of text but i just had to say some of it. I could go on for a while longer but i will spare you the rest... for now.

 

PS: Yes, Lich needs a Nerf!

[Dadnir.5038]

59 minutes ago, Nimon.7840 said:

resolution:

will it reduce the incoming damage from fear? - fear is an movement impairing condition and therefore only affected by resistance. - most likely the fear damage will be reduced, but you still get feared away.

 

Terror do condition damage so yes resolution will reduce it's damage, just like other effects of the same nature. That said, resistance might end up with the bug you're thinking about.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I think traited fear on necro might have conflicts with the new boons...

 

Fear is inherently a non damaging condition, so the new resistance should stop it, but it can be traited for damage so...

[Jijimuge.4675]

33 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I think traited fear on necro might have conflicts with the new boons...

 

Fear is inherently a non damaging condition, so the new resistance should stop it, but it can be traited for damage so...

 

Poisoned (from any source) is in a similar boat (re the heal reduction)

I wonder if Anet already have a plan to handle these cases, or if they've overlooked these cases where condis can't be divided quite so cleanly into d and non-d (wordfilter shenanigans)?

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

What will happen there is Poison is a damaging condition, so it will be affected by the new Resolution and not the new Resistance.

So that 20% healing reduction will be unavoidable outside of using a cleanse.

[QuirkyDM.2351]

Condi scourge already seemed very powerful in Solo open world, with the Curses/Torment self-healing build already able to solo almost all content in the game. Now Torment will be even more powerful for many of these bosses since they are often stationary, especially with a Flesh Golem to offer as a tempting target to stand still. In raid content, it's a mixed bag. Cairn will be easier, Slothasor will be harder. I think condi scourges came out ahead here, though I didn't consider the fear conflict.

 

For PvP, this will hit the condi scourge pretty hard. On the other hand, a lot of barrier and healing power was recently nuked in PvP because Scourges were tanking hard with blood bank allowing ridiculous amount of barrier using dagger and basic healing.

 

I see blood bank helping other specs more to add some barrier in Shroud while procing life steal. It's basically adding Runes of Sanctuary to your build. Add in some actual Runes of Sanctuary and 35% of all life steal (or other heal) in shroud will add barrier. (or 120% while at full health) This is not insignificant as it can really add to your shroud uptime. I plan on doing some sustain builds with this on bosses using Reaper. It may not justify taking Blood Magic, but it'll be fun to experiment with.

Edited May 1, 2021 by QuirkyDM.2351

[FalsePromises.6398]

Honestly the torment change reducing the synergy with fear is really annoying, but I feel like it would be PERFECTLY remedied if they added a bonus effect to Insidious Disruption that made torment deal bonus damage against feared enemies, or made it so that trait made torment tick its higher value against feared enemies. That would put a trait in that trio selection column of curses that could actually compete with plague sending in an offensive manner, and while one might say that would mess up the rotation a bit since Blood is Power would lose one of its easiest and cheapest transfers, one might ALSO say that since bosses in raids are standing still more often than not, you wouldn't need to give up plague sending in a meta dps build to make your torment reliable. 

[wolfsblut.9435]

Regarding fear: They could define that "moving" on your own will protect you from the torment bonus, but "get moved" will not.

[Harakov.8950]

18 hours ago, Swadow.6213 said:

Necromancer was one of the first ones to receive Torment and it was synergistic with Fear, making it most necromancer focused condition there was. Now with the Torment changed to behave exactly the opposite, Necromancer is one of the worst to use the condition and Scourge is just filled with Torment. These changes feel completely from the perspective of someone who sees only world bosses and large raid/strike bossses that do not move at all completely forgetting that anything else exists.

 

The curses changes are just whatever, Insidious Disruption has been and always will be a waste of a trait due to how rare CC actually is, and again with Torment change it makes no sense for Necromancer to have Torment since Fear is counter synergistic with it.

I completely agree. Necromancers were at unique position, when they could apply Torment to foes and harvest the bonus damage from it by making targets moving with Fear. This mechanic will be completely senseless with this new reverse of Torment, and as stated by Nimon.7840 there are currently no good ways to imobilize targets as a necromancer . The Insidious Disruption now seems completely foolish - you Fear the target, which trigger the infliction of Torment, which will deal less damage because of the Fear effect make the target moving? 

 

On the other hand I personally welcome the change which add concentration and expertise to celestial equipment, even that I know that many players are looking down at those stats. But the destruction of Torment - Fear mechanic is really upsetting, and completely ruin the play-style in all game-types for scourge who focused on Torment damage...

[Nimon.7840]

2 hours ago, Harakov.8950 said:

I completely agree. Necromancers were at unique position, when they could apply Torment to foes and harvest the bonus damage from it by making targets moving with Fear. This mechanic will be completely senseless with this new reverse of Torment, and as stated by Nimon.7840 there are currently no good ways to imobilize targets as a necromancer . The Insidious Disruption now seems completely foolish - you Fear the target, which trigger the infliction of Torment, which will deal less damage because of the Fear effect make the target moving? 

 

On the other hand I personally welcome the change which add concentration and expertise to celestial equipment, even that I know that many players are looking down at those stats. But the destruction of Torment - Fear mechanic is really upsetting, and completely ruin the play-style in all game-types for scourge who focused on Torment damage...

 

yeah, i totally agree that it adding concentration and expertise added will open up for new builds. but there will also be some really obnoxious builds. not for pve, but wvw.

for example the - imo - already really strong cele sword weaver for wvw roaming.

or something like this for necro:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFgE2aUZFMPmFTjdiF3ze6D-zVZYVh3MiB3oBKlIjgMDheLgoTAnnGC8pB-w

yes the damage wont be high, but i think this build might get almost unkillable.
dagger 2 (while bleeding) will give you 5k health + 1700 barrier
the food will regenerate 85 health and 30 barrier per second

then you get the condi damage dealt as health
+ you will regenerate 1060 lifeforce every 4 seconds

then you can still dodge to get regeneration, which will then give barrier as well.

and while in shroud you will regenerate 266 health and 93 barrier per second

 

that sounds a bit insane.

[slave to the grind.5028]

RE condi fear mechanic:

 

Not just scourges. I main a core necro (because I like my shroud too much to leave it alone; it has a torment AoE...) as a condi in wvw and do quite well up to 1vs4 and 1vs5 situations. Or did. After this patch, my DPS is going to be so bad I won't be able to win a 1vs1 anymore...

 

As for the above build, its issue is going to be it takes so long to kill something they'll call for help, and then you'll be dead. I'm also noting it's not exactly a condi build, which doesn't solve my viper/trailblazer gear issue.

Edited May 2, 2021 by slave to the grind.5028

[Dadnir.5038]

39 minutes ago, Nimon.7840 said:

 

yeah, i totally agree that it adding concentration and expertise added will open up for new builds. but there will also be some really obnoxious builds. not for pve, but wvw.

for example the - imo - already really strong cele sword weaver for wvw roaming.

or something like this for necro:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSAFgE2aUZFMPmFTjdiF3ze6D-zVZYVh3MiB3oBKlIjgMDheLgoTAnnGC8pB-w

yes the damage wont be high, but i think this build might get almost unkillable.
dagger 2 (while bleeding) will give you 5k health + 1700 barrier
the food will regenerate 85 health and 30 barrier per second

then you get the condi damage dealt as health
+ you will regenerate 1060 lifeforce every 4 seconds

then you can still dodge to get regeneration, which will then give barrier as well.

and while in shroud you will regenerate 266 health and 93 barrier per second

 

that sounds a bit insane.

 

Runes of sanctuary ain't affected by passive health generation effects and most likely BB won't either. (BB already does not proc on the boon: regeneration.)

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Blood_Bank

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Sanctuary

[Shroud.2307]

What I hate about the Torment change is that Torment was a late addition and added as a unique Necromancer Condition. It synergized with Fear in that it dealt more damage to moving targets, and Fear forced the target to move. With Terror it was a nice heavy burst.

Now it will be only when the target is still, and how many hard CC's or Immobilizes does Necro have? Not many. It will also mean Fearing your target will reduce your damage rather than increasing it, mind you people will always be moving anyway so it won't make much of a difference in that regard.

The funny thing is that Reaper has the most CC's with "Chilled to the Bone!", Executioner's Scythe, and Grasping Darkness, but the least access to Torment. Scourge has Oppressive Collapse, and that's all. All specs can have Flesh Golem, but we all know how unreliable that CC is (not that I'm ruling it out, though).

So basically, the Condition that was added to compliment Necromancer, and eventually became profession-wide, with some even having more access to it than Necromancer (which is fine, Necro can apply plenty enough Conditions), is now going to be almost impossible to take full advantage of in a competitive setting.

Torment stacking someone as a Scourge then using Oppressive Collapse could be a nice big couple ticks, but it's not going to be insane. Same idea with Tainted Shackles, but core Necro doesn't have as much access to Torment as Scourge anyway.

I don't feel strongly about any of the changes, and this one isn't any different. I don't usually play Condi anyway, but in WvW and PvP, this is a nerf and it's not something Necro can take advantage of with CC's. Basically Torment becomes another Bleed, where as things like Thief or Revenant actually have frequent enough access to CC for it to have value. Think for example of Condi Rev Torment stacking then using Temporal Rift or Call to Anguish.

I think Terror should get a small damage increase to compensate for this change, but that's just me.

[Dadnir.5038]

51 minutes ago, Shroud.2307 said:

What I hate about the Torment change is that Torment was a late addition and added as a unique Necromancer Condition.

 

It wasn't. Pre [LS season1] Nightmare tower arc, ANet advertised an incoming new condition, torment, and said that they had the necromancer in mind when they designed this condition. However, at release of the condition, both mesmer and warrior ended up getting better access than the necromancer. When revenant was introduced (HoT extension), torment ended up being one of it's core condition while it stayed marginal on the necromancer. Until scourge, torment didn't really have any impact into the necromancer's gameplay, the necromancer was all about bleed (which is why Runes of the kraith was the meta choice for any necromancer condibuild).

 

PS: The "synergy" with fear only became a topic when ANet added torment to Terrifying descent (now Insidious disruption) in the pre PoF patch (August 2017). (And at that time, Fear was pretty much ignored by 95% of the playerbase. Fear start to see it's golden age after a long time of being ignored at the end of 2018 thanks to the rework of _fear of death_ and the rework of _strength of undeath_ into _soul battery_ moving the 20% LF increase into a minor trait spot instead of a major).

[Anchoku.8142]

Fear, though a condition, is an interrupt and also counts as a control effect. Strictly speaking, Terror should be disabled in PvP for consistency since damage was removed from most control effects.

 

I wonder if Tainted Shackles with the Bind and Torment will receive a mechanic change in the future.

[Kodama.6453]

5 hours ago, Anchoku.8142 said:

Fear, though a condition, is an interrupt and also counts as a control effect. Strictly speaking, Terror should be disabled in PvP for consistency since damage was removed from most control effects.

 

I wonder if Tainted Shackles with the Bind and Torment will receive a mechanic change in the future.

Not really. Elementalist, for example, got to keep their trait lightning rod and Anet stated that this is intended, since the whole purpose of this trait is to add damage to CC spells.

 

Same logic should apply to terror then. It is a trait that is specifically supposed to add damage to a CC (fear). Exceptions seems allowed and intended by Anet.

[Teratus.2859]

I did always enjoy playing a Dhuumfire Reaper hybrid so I guess that build is getting a tiny bit of extra condi damage now from soul barbs.. so yay I guess.

Probably the change I like most is the no cooldown on Mark of evasion.
The main Necro build I run around on is a power tank minion master with a crapton of lifesteal healing.
I won't knock getting a bit of extra healing from regen on every dodge.
I run a MH dagger on that build's secondary weapon set for the skill 2 lifesteal which when combined with all the lifesteal I get passively from my own attacks and minions etc is more than enough for the skill to function as my dedicated heal skill in PvE.

With MOE giving me a guaranteed bleed on every dodge now it'll be a lot easier to trigger Dagger 2's bonus damage against bleeding foes every time I use it.

I'm looking forward to playing about with this when the patch drops.
 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Teratus.2859

[wolfsblut.9435]

It's still possible they change a trait to: Opponents will be paralyzed with fear

[slave to the grind.5028]

Well, you could, but then fear is just stun with a different name...

[Dadnir.5038]

3 hours ago, wolfsblut.9435 said:

It's still possible they change a trait to: Opponents will be paralyzed with fear

Well... It would be no different from stun yet more annoying from a sPvP/WvW point of view. So it's probably a very bad idea.