ArenaNet:Skill feedback/Necromancer/Verata's Sacrifice

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Verata's Sacrifice

Carinae Dragonblood Issue -- 07:55, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Issue

Do I need to say it? This skill is utterly useless as it currently is.

Suggestion

Put it back to it's original form. It would still be outpaced by BotM, but could at least see some occasional use, especially in areas with mass degen. Given how fragile minions are in Hard Mode, it would be a nice, but not overpowering buff. It's not going to break the game to return this skill to it's original form.

This is the previous version of Verata's Sacrifice.

SavageX's Issue -- 01:22, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Issue

It's current recharge mechanic makes it to restrictive. No MM is going to just settle on less than 3 minions to meet the conditional for this spell, hence why most use Blood of the Master instead.

Suggestion

Change the recharge to 10 seconds and add the following conditional to scale with the number of minions:

"For each minion in control, this spell recharges for an additional 5 seconds."

This way, a full army of 10 minions would make this spell's recharge be 60 seconds (10 seconds + (5 seconds * 10 minions)) but with a smaller army of 4 minions, it would recharge at 30 seconds (10 seconds + (5 seconds * 4 minions)).

Needs a buff

Issue

Mostly the recharge, but the functionality and cost (i.e. amount of sacrifice required) aren't really great either.

Suggestion

I like the above suggestion for fixing the recharge, but I would like to see this given a bit of extra functionality as well. Something like:

10% 10 2 8

Enchantment Spell. All conditions are removed from your minions and transferred to you. For 5...11...13 seconds, your minions gain +10 Health regeneration and you create minions 50% faster and one level higher than normal. Whenever you create a minion in this way you sacrifice 12...7...6% maximum health. Verata's Sacrifice takes an additional 4 seconds to recharge for each minion you currently have.

This would allow an MM to build up his army very quickly, at the cost of his own health. The recharge:duration ratio would also be a lot friendlier (ranging from 8 with no minions to 48 with 10) and the sacrifice cost is a bit lower, though this is balanced by more cost whenever you create another minion.

It would no longer be a skill centered purely on keeping your minions alive, but we have Blood of the Master for that anyway. Rather it would be more focussed on having a generally more powerful army. Being able to make minions which are a level higher than normal would be very useful to MMs since they would be able to bolster their whole army.

A change like this would not only make sense from a balance perspective (buffing an unused skill while keeping it limited with the sacrifice) but also from a flavour perspective (you're sacrificing yourself to gain a more powerful army) and also from a GW lore perspective (remember Verata was obsessed with making more powerful minions and stuff like that).

Shadowphoenix's issue -- 15:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Issue

Same as above. This skill needs a serious buff, with the recharge time it is useless; but I see great potential for this skill.

• Suggestion

Verata's Sacrifice - 15%

10 1 15 - Death Magic - For 15 seconds all undead allies gain +2...7...8 health regeneration. If you have more than 3 minions, this skill is disabled for 15 seconds. or

Verata's Sacrifice - 15%

10 1 15 - Death Magic - For 15 seconds all undead allies gain +2...8...9 health regeneration. If you have more than 3 minions, this skill is disabled for 15 seconds.

Igis' suggestions

• Issue

Of no avail, neither in PvP nor in PvE.

• Suggestion A

Like Carinae Dragonblood mentioned above, change this skill back to 30, although change its skill type to Enchantment spell in order to make it counterable in PvP. In addition to that I would decrease (or increase) the 15% to 10% (or 20%) to make it more integrative, as it's the only skill with a 15% skill cost. This version is still far away of being overpowered:

• Verata's Sacrifice - 10%

10 2 30 - Enchantment Spell. (1...12...15 seconds.) Initial effect: Transfers all conditions from your undead servants to you. Your undead servants gain +10 Health regeneration.

• Suggestion B

This skill would be more attractive being an IAS, since there is none for minions currently. Due to alternative skills for condition transfer ( Pestilence or Foul Feast) or condition remove ( Recovery or Pure Was Li Ming), this skill's facet becomes superfluous.

• Verata's Sacrifice -10%

10 ¼ 60 - Spell. (5...9...10 seconds.) Your undead servants gain +10 Health regeneration and attack 25% faster. Instantly recharges if you have control of 3 or fewer servants.

This would make MMs more useable in PvP, because they can increase the damage output of their minions in key situations.

Vili's Issue 13:40, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Issue

The only time you'd ever have less than 4 minions would be using Order of Undeath. Oh, wait, that was reverted. Uh...yeah, it's useless.

Suggestion

20%

10 2 5 Orders enchantment. Sacrifice 20% of your maximum health. For 5 seconds, your minions steal 3...12...15 health whenever they hit with an attack.

Basically gives you Order of the Vampire for minions. Not elite because minions never (well, rarely) get IAS, and most attack slower than players anyway. And it's still not superior to Order of Undeath.

Chaos Messenger's Issue

Issue

Long recharge, minions don't benefit of this for longer than the first minutes.

Suggestion

Make it heal through degen and/or reduce recharge... 17%

15 2 30 "For 5...9...10 seconds, your undead allies are healed for 10...18...20 Health per second. All conditions are removed from those allies and transferred to you."

Another option

10%

15 ¾ 25 "Skill. For 10 seconds, your undead servants explode upon death dealing 10...50...60 damage to all adjacent foes."

Falconeye's Proposal -- An non-Elite bomber version of post-nerfed/pre-buffed Order of Undeath

• Issue

Same as above.

• Suggestion

Change functionality to:

• Verata's Sacrifice - 15%

10 1 15 - (Death Magic) - Elite Spell. All but 3 of your minions die. (20 seconds.) All undead servants you control gain +5...17...20 Health regeneration and transfers all conditions from those servants to you. Instantly recharges if you have control of 3 or fewer undead servants. -=OR=-

See Reclaim Essence & Assassin's Promise

• Verata's Promise -

33% 1 1 30 - (Death Magic) - Elite Spell. All of your undead servants die. (5...13...15 seconds.) All servants you control gain +5...17...20 Health regeneration and transfers all conditions from those servants to you. If a servants dies in this way, your Death Magic skills are recharged. End effect: all of your servants die.

Appendum A;

Create Duplicate Skill using Verata's Promise; solves recharge issues.

• Verata's Promise / Verata's Sacrifice -

33% 15 2 60 - (Death Magic) - Enchantment Spell. (10...50...60 seconds.) Your undead servants have +2...8...9 Health regeneration. Transfers all conditions from those servants to you. End effect: all of your servants die.

Appendum B;

Order of Undeath + Verata's Promise

• Order of Undeath -

5 1 15 - (Death Magic) - Elite Spell. All but one of your minions die. It deals +5...25...30 damage, has +5...17...20 Health regeneration, and attacks 33% faster (20 seconds).

The version that destroyed all but one buffed minion. I'd say combine the 2-functions and bring back Verata's Promise (possibly as elite) as part of Bonus Skill Pact... Its been over a year since gwen... need more skills! ^_^

Elite Enchantment Spell. All but one of your undead servents die. For 20 seconds it deals +5...29...35 damage, has +5...17...20 Health regeneration, and attacks 33% faster.

--Falconeye 11:50, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Bathory's Issue 08:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Comments & Suggestions Here, Please

Issue

This skill has been nerfed way in to the shadow of BotM. It shouldn't be hard to understand that this skill needs a change in order to compete with other skills again. Making it work as a "restarter" skill would help it work with other spells that have long recharges. Making it destroy minions would avoid abuse with skill like Aura of the Lich because all minions would need to be remade. There would have excellent synergy with Death Nova and other skills that are used on minions often, like Dwayna's Sorrow.

Suggestion

33%

1 1 30

Enchantment Spell. (15 seconds) All your minions are destroyed. If more than 3 minions were destroyed this way, all your skill are recharge and you gain +0...2...2 Health regeneration for each minion destroyed.

Rising_Dusk's Thoughts - 16:18, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Issue

• Right now, this skill just isn't as useful as Blood of the Master. I suggest adjusting it to function as a minion master utility that requires the sacrifice of minions.
• This allows you to use your old minions to bring out some new ones much quicker. This gives minion masters the capacity to refresh their armies in a fun, new way -- corpses permitting.
• This also has synergy with Well of the Profane by turning down that 3 second cast time into a mere nothing. This requires building wells with minions, which would be a fun new approach to minion mastery.

Suggestion

• Verata's Sacrifice -

33% 1 ¼ 30 - Spell. (60 seconds.) All of your minions are destroyed. Your spells that exploit corpses cast 10...42...50% faster. Lasts for as many spells as minions destroyed.