Guild Wars 2

Part 1 of a series dedicated to redesigning and fixing GW2 combat, profession by profession.

NECROMANCER: “I LACK AN IDENTITY!”
Necromancer is billed as the “attrition class” of GW2. However, it is in fact just another DPS class that typically focuses on spamming poorly-cued, low cool-down ranged skills to deal excessive DoT via conditions. By shifting damage more towards power, adjusting how the Necromancer deals conditions, and adding additional CC to the Necromancer’s repertoire, this thread intends to turn the Necromancer into a supportive, attrition-style class that has a more defined, cast-time-based position and role in combat while also fixing some of the more imbalanced aspects of the class (aside from its reliance on AI with the Minionmancer build; that’s sort of beyond “fixing”).

To introduce some actual attrition into the Necromancer’s play-style, there are increases to the profession’s area control and denial abilities. Staff and scepter functionality changes combined with well adjustments equip the Necromancer with more area control than ever before which makes both playing as a Necromancer and fighting against one an exercise in timing, positioning, planning ahead and even aim rather than a one-sided, auto-aimed CC race or condition-cleansing montage.

Death Shroud skills
[Dark Path] (2)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Teleport to target location. After a delay, a burst of necrotic energy chills and bleeds adjacent foes.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage: 159 (0.5)
• Damage radius: 180
• Chill: 5 seconds
• Bleeding (2): 5 seconds
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Range: 600
  • The delayed AoE blast triggers the blast finisher rather than the act of teleporting to the target location.

[Doom] (3)

• This skill now has a ½ second delay time between its cast and its effect.
• The player targeted by the Necromancer now also has the reaper icon appear over his/her head.

Axe main-hand skills
[Rending Claws] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ½ second
• Cast out a whirling blade that inflicts vulnerability and returns to you.
• Damage: 118 (0.4)
• Vulnerability (1): 6 seconds
• Range: 600
  • Bright green-tinted [Vapor Blade] animation.
  • After-cast adjusted to 0.50 second.

[Ghastly Claws] (2)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1¾ seconds
• Recharge: 12 seconds
• Channel a cone of biting energy that slashes foes and grants you life force for each foe that you strike. The final pulse removes up to 1 boon from foes that it strikes.
• Damage (3x): 918 (2.85)
• Life Force per foe struck: 1%
• Range: 400
  • Strikes up to 5 foes.
  • This skill uses the same hit box as Engineer [Blunderbuss].
  • This cone attack strikes foes once every ½ second.

[Unholy Feast] (3)

• Now also grants 2% life force for each foe that you strike.

Dagger main-hand skills
[Life Siphon] (2)

• Cast-time changed from 3½ seconds to 2¼ seconds.
• Damage changed from (9x): 909 (2.7) to (4x) 900 (2.6).
• This skill now uses the Elementalist [Cone of Cold] strike schedule.
• Healing per strike changed from 202 (0.2) to 454 (0.2).
• The final pulse now steals up to 1 boon from the target if it hits.
• The final pulse now grants the Necromancer 8% life force if it hits.

[Dark Pact] (3)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Cast out spectral bonds toward your foe that immobilize and cripple foes in a line.
• Damage: 252 (0.75)
• Immobilized: 2 seconds
• Crippled: 3 seconds
• Range: 1200
  • Piercing projectile.
  • This skill now uses a projectile: bright-green recolor of the Guardian [Zealot’s Embrace] projectile model.

Dagger off-hand skills
[Deathly Swarm]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Become a deathly swarm that charges at your foe. If you strike a foe with this attack, you inflict blindness and also transfer up to 3 conditions from you to that foe. If you struck a weakened foe, you also inflict poison.
• Damage: 208 (0.7)
• Blind: 5 seconds
• Poison vs weakened foes: 5 seconds
• Range: 900
  • This skill now uses the Giganticus Lupicus deathly swarm charge attack which he uses in his second phase with a range shortened from 1200 to 900.

Focus off-hand skills
[Spinal Shivers]: name changed to [Shivers of Dread] (5)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2¾ seconds
• Recharge: 35 seconds
• Cast a chill over target area before unleashing a powerful curse that rips boons and lingers based how long you channeled it.
• Chill: 4 seconds
• Curse damage per pulse: 244 (0.75)
• Curse boon rip per pulse: 1
• Curse pulse: 1 second
• ¾-second channel: Curse duration: 1 second
• 1¾-second channel: Curse duration: 2 seconds
• Full Channel: Curse duration: 3 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 900
  • [Shivers of Dread] shares the same pulse schedule as Elementalist [Lava Font].
  • The chill part of the skill plays a unique audio cue at the target location to warn players that the Necromancer is charging [Shivers of Dread].
  • The player can move while casting this skill.

Scepter main-hand skills
[Blood Curse] (1-1): Name changed to [Putrid Strike] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED; AUTO-ATTACK CHAIN REMOVED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Cast out a bolt of energy at your foe that inflicts bleeding. If you strike a foe that is already bleeding, you instead inflict torment. If you strike a foe that is already tormented, you instead inflict extra damage, vulnerability and gain life force.
• Damage: 244 (0.7)
• Bleeding (1): 3 seconds
• Torment (1): 3 seconds
• Vulnerability (1): 6 seconds
• Extra damage vs tormented foes: 5%
• Life force gained: 3%
• Range: 1200
  • [Putrid Strike] uses the Mesmer [Ether Bolt] projectile speed, arc and pathing.
  • [Putrid Strike] uses a bright-green colored Elementalist [Fireball] projectile.
  • After-cast adjusted to 0.4 second.
  • This skill is no longer part of an attack chain, but rather is the only 1 skill on Necromancer scepter.

[Grasping Dead] (2-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Raise skeletal hands from the ground to damage and torment foes at the target location.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage (3x): 732 (2.1)
• Torment (3): 3 seconds
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Radius: 150
• Range: 900
  • This skill hits up to 5 foes.
  • Uses a ½-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while activating another skill).
  • This skill shares the same pulse schedule as [Lava Font].
  • The grasping hand animations trigger with each pulse.
  • This skill chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Vile Touch].

[Vile Touch] (2-2)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Conjure a hand made of dark energy above target area. After 2 seconds, the hand crashes into the ground, crippling and bleeding foes
• Delay: 2 seconds
• Damage: 118 (0.4)
• Bleeding (4): 10 seconds
• Crippled: 5 seconds
• Radius: 240
• Range: 900
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 4 seconds.
  • This skill hits up to 5 foes.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Grasping Dead]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.

[Feast of Corruption] (3-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 2¼ seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Damage and hex your foe with feast of corruption. Whenever a foe under the effects of feast of corruption gains a condition, that foe is poisoned and allies in the area of that foe are healed.
• Damage: (4x): 260 (0.8)
• Feast of Corruption (4): 10 seconds
• Poison: 2 seconds
• Healing: 370 (0.2)
• Healing radius: 600
• Range: 900
  • This skill applies 1 stack of a unique debuff called Feast of Corruption once every ½ second over its 2¼-second channel. Each debuff lasts up to 10 seconds and cannot be removed with condition removal skills.
  • The effects of Feast of Corruption trigger whenever a foe suffers from a condition.
  • This skill chains into another skill upon cast activation: [Foul Feast].
  • This skill begins recharging immediately after use; recharge unaffected by how long the player takes to use its chain skill.

[Foul Feast] (3-2)

• Cast-time: 1 second
• Conjure teeth of necrotic energy at target area. After a delay, the teeth gnash together, damaging foes. This spell deals more damage to foes based on the number of unique conditions that they have. If you strike a foe suffering from poison, you gain life force and inflict bleeding.
• Delay: 2 seconds
• Damage: 402 (1.2)
• Damage radius: 240
• Extra damage per unique condition: 5%
• Bleeding vs a poisoned foe (3): 10 seconds
• Life Force gained vs a poisoned foe: 2%
• Range: 900
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
  • This skill hits up to 5 foes.
  • This skill uses the same delay scheme as Elementalist [Ice Spike].

Here you go:

Staff skills
[Necrotic Grasp] (1)

• Projectile Speed increased by 30%.

[Mark of Blood] (2)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Inscribe a pulsing mark that bleeds foes and grants regeneration to allies.
• Damage (3x): 612 (1.5)
• Regeneration per pulse: 1 second
• Bleeding per pulse (1): 5 seconds
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Pulse: 1 second
• Radius: 150
• Range: 1200
  • This skill shares its pulse schedule with that of Elementalist [Lava Font].
  • Now uses a ½-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while disabled or while activating another skill). This is similar to how [Lava Font] functions.
  • The [Mark of Blood]’s mark is now a neon-red and emits a red mist while active (same particle effect as the kind of black mist that comes off of wells).

[Chilblains] (3-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: ¼ second
• Recharge: 20 seconds
• Inscribe a line at target location that poisons and chills foes that cross it.
• Line damage: 101 (0.3)
• Poison: 5 seconds
• Chilled: 3 seconds
• Line duration: 3 seconds
• Combo Field: Ethereal
• Range: 1200
  • This skill uses a light blue-colored Mesmer [Temporal Curtain] model.
  • This skill uses the same hit detection as Elementalist [Unsteady Ground].
  • This skill’s effects have an internal cool-down of 5 seconds per target.
  • This skill now chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Weaken Knees].

[Weaken Knees] (3-2)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 45 seconds
• Evade backwards, and inscribe a mark where you land that knocks down and cripples foes when they trigger it.
• Evasion: 1 second
• Mark knock down: 2 seconds
• Mark crippled: 4 seconds
• Mark radius: 120
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
  • The [Weaken Knees] mark is a neon-blue.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Chilblains]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.

[Putrid Mark] (4) – NAME CHANGED TO – [Mark of Pain] (4-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Hex your foe with a mark of pain. Whenever target foe takes damage, mark of pain deals damage to that foe and all adjacent foes.
• Mark of Pain (5x) (25): 5 seconds
• Mark of Pain damage: 85 (0.2)
• Mark of Pain damage radius: 180
• Range: 1200
  • This skill pulses 5 times total when striking a target. Each pulse applies 5 stacks of a unique debuff called Mark of Pain with each strike. This skill pulses once every 0.25 second.
  • Whenever a foe under the effects of Mark of Pain takes damage, the mark triggers its effect and decreases in stack by 1. This skill’s effect has a 1-second internal cool-down per attacker.
  • The damage from Mark of Pain hits up to 5 targets including the marked target.
  • A foe under the effects of Mark of Pain will have a large golden [Mark of Pain] skill icon above his/her head.
  • This skill now chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Putrid Explosion].

[Putrid Explosion] (4-2)

• Cast-time: ½ second
• Recharge: 25 seconds
• Conjure a bubble of dark energy at target location. After 1 second the bubble explodes, damaging and transferring up to 3 conditions from you to the foes affected.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage: 444 (1.2)
• Damage radius: 180
• Combo Finisher: Blast
• Range: 1200
  • This chain skill remains active for up to 15 seconds.
  • This skill uses a brown-tinted Guardian [Sanctuary] for the bubble model.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Mark of Pain]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately go to into recharge upon respective use.

[Reaper’s Mark] (5)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Recharge: 45 seconds
• Inscribe a mark that damages foes and grants you life force. On cast, you gain the reaper’s mark; the next time that you enter Death Shroud, you also fear adjacent foes.
• Reaper’s Mark (10 seconds): The next time that you enter Death Shroud, you fear adjacent foes (180 radius; 1 second fear; ½-second delay)
• Mark damage (3x): 477 (1.2)
• Mark duration: 6 seconds
• Mark pulse: 2 seconds
• Life force per pulse: 3%
• Combo Field: Poison
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • The first pulse comes 2 seconds after cast-completion and then pulses once every 2 seconds afterwards until the mark’s duration is over.
  • Each pulse will only grant life force to the Necromancer if the Necromancer is standing in the field when it pulses.
  • Upon entering Death Shroud, the Reaper’s Mark fear takes a ½ second to activate, thus providing some counter-play.

Healing Skills
[Well of Blood]

• Cast-time increased from 1 second to 1¼ seconds.
• Recharge reduced from 40 to 35 seconds.
• The combo field produced by this skill has been changed from a light field to a water field.

[Signet of Vampirism]

• Cast-time reduced from 1¼ seconds to ¾ second.
• Recharge reduced from 35 seconds to 25 seconds.

Well skills
[Well of Corruption]

• Duration increased from 5 seconds to 9 seconds.
• Pulse frequency increased from once every 1 second to once every 1½ seconds.
• Radius increased from 240 to 300.

[Well of Suffering]

• Duration increased from 6 seconds to 12 seconds.
• Pulse frequency increased from once every 1 second to once every 2 seconds.
• Radius increased from 240 to 300.

Signet skills
[Signet of Spite]

• Cast-time increased from ¾ to 1 second.
• Damage adjusted from 263 (?) to 159 (0.4).
• Bleed stacks removed.
• Poison duration reduced from 10 seconds to 8 seconds.
• Weakness duration reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.
• Cripple duration reduced from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Active ability now uses a projectile: gold-tinted [Life Blast].

Spectral skills
[Spectral Grasp]

• Recharge reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
• Chill duration reduced from 4 seconds to 3 seconds.
• Life force gain reduced from 15% to 12%.

[Spectral Walk]

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 50 seconds
• Cure yourself of crippled, chilled and immobilize while gaining swiftness and a brief burst of super speed. Create a shadowy tether and become spectral, gaining life force when struck. You may return to your initial position by using Spectral Recall.
• Swiftness: 25 seconds
• Super speed: 2 seconds
• Spectral Walk (8 seconds): Gain life force when taking damage.
• Life force gained when taking damage: 2%
• Breaks stun

Death Magic traits
Reanimator (Death Magic – 5; minor)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Gain 5 seconds of Vigor upon leaving Death Shroud.
  • Cool-down: 20 seconds

Necromantic Corruption (Death Magic — XII)

• REMOVED FROM THE GAME.

NEW TRAIT – Dead Skin (Death Magic – XI)

• Gain 1 stack of Dead Skin every 5 seconds that you don’t take damage (up to 5 stacks total). Lose 1 stack of Dead Skin every time that you take damage. You cannot lose more than 1 stack of Dead Skin each second. When you lose a stack of Dead Skin, you gain 2% Life Force.
  • Dead Skin (1): Gain 300 toughness.

Soul Reaping traits
Near to Death (Soul Reaping – VIII)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Death Shroud begins recharging right as you enter into it.

Reapers Mark (Soul Reaping – VII)

• REMOVED FROM THE GAME

NEW TRAIT — Putrid Bile (Soul Reaping – VII)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• When you enter Death Shroud, you create a bubble of toxic energy at your location. After 2 seconds, this bubble bursts, poisoning and knocking back foes.
  • Delay: 2 seconds
  • Damage: 314 (0.85)
  • Poison: 3 seconds
  • Knock-back: 180
  • Combo Finisher: Blast
  • Radius: 180

I agree with some suggestions (mostly the Axe ones), but most of these will not happen for one good reason: complexity creep. Adding more skills and functionality is fine, but I mean, look at how cluttered the profession mechanic area looks in your image. Complexity creep is the antithesis of good design – Occam’s Razor.

I won’t go through every suggestion, simply because I’m lazy, but I don’t think very many of these are good. Some of them may improve Necromancer attrition, but most involve such radical changes that they will probably never see the light of day. Feel free to post this in the Necro subforum – you’ll probably get a pretty good critique on most things from Bhawb and couple others.

Balefire.7592:

I agree with some suggestions (mostly the Axe ones), but most of these will not happen for one good reason: complexity creep. Adding more skills and functionality is fine, but I mean, look at how cluttered the profession mechanic area looks in your image. Complexity creep is the antithesis of good design – Occam’s Razor.

Sure, I suppose. Only thing is that the skills I’m proposing are very straightforward and possess a clear overall goal in their collective design. The suggestion on the whole isn’t very complex at all outside of maybe the coding that would be required to make it a reality.

Balefire.7592:

I won’t go through every suggestion, simply because I’m lazy,

OK.

Balefire.7592:

Feel free to post this in the Necro subforum – you’ll probably get a pretty good critique on most things from Bhawb and couple others.

I’ve seen Bhawb’s responses. He doesn’t seem like a fellow that argues a discussion’s main point. That’s less than ideal when talking about collective changes with a defined overall goal.

Besides this thread is part of a bigger initiative entirely related to profession balance. It belongs here more than anywhere else.

Swagg.9236:

Balefire.7592:

I agree with some suggestions (mostly the Axe ones), but most of these will not happen for one good reason: complexity creep. Adding more skills and functionality is fine, but I mean, look at how cluttered the profession mechanic area looks in your image. Complexity creep is the antithesis of good design – Occam’s Razor.

Sure, I suppose. Only thing is that the skills I’m proposing are very straightforward and possess a clear overall goal in their collective design. The suggestion on the whole isn’t very complex at all outside of maybe the coding that would be required to make it a reality.

Possessing a clear design goal is different from being straightforward.
Take Spinal Shivers. Currently, it is very straightforward – it does a few things, but does them consistently. Your version, while perhaps more powerful, has increased complexity simply based on the fact that it has variable end effects.
Another example would be your version of blood curse. Currently it bleeds, bleeds, poisons. Each hit is defined, and will only do one thing. You have increased the complexity of skill by attaching not one, but two conditional effect modifiers to it. Not only that, but I’m personally totally lost regarding it’s AoE applications and it’s variable nature – if I strike a bleeding foe, will foes around it get bleeding or torment? What if I strike a tormented foe? Do the conditions of nearby foes matter? What exactly happens if I hit a foe with torment, but not bleeding?
The biggest source of complexity creep here is your mechanic suggestion. New necros already have difficulty learning how and when to use death shroud properly – adding additional skills, especially ones tied to an entirely different resource, will only complicate things. No other class has to manage two resource bars, and when you figure in minions, it pushes it over the edge. Moreover, are blood power skills available in death shroud? Can I generate blood power in death shroud? If not, why are my profession mechanics meant to clash in this way? Will blood power skills generate life force? How will my profession trait resource (life force pool) affect blood power? What traits will be updated to affect it, if any?

You have also made several changes that weaken skills without any apparent reason. Why does Reaper’s Mark have to have a double-activation skill when Static Field doesn’t? Giving it a more apparent animation is one thing – and that’s a change I would agree with (I support better mark animations). However, your changes not only nerf the skill with the charge-up requirement, they increase complexity due it’s variable power range as well as the fact it requires further activation.

Lastly, I don’t disagree with the idea of modifying things to increase attrition and sustain, but frankly, I fail to see how adding another resource bar and modifying a handful of skills (note that few of the skills you changed are truly defensive) will achieve that.
The reason I suggested you post this in the Necro forum isn’t because I want to see your ideas get torn into (which will certainly happen) – it’s because a lot of these suggestions seem misguided in terms of achieving the attrition play style most Necromancer would like to see. I post in those forums daily, so trust me when I say this – a lot of these changes aren’t what we’re looking for.

I agree that Necros have an identity crisis – but giant sweeping changes to lots of skills that would require months of work to implement isn’t the way to get things done.

Even the balance forum guidelines note:

“Be mindful of scope. It takes design, development and testing time in order to make a new feature or revise an old one. Keep scope/work/time/resources in mind when you make your suggestions.”

A better approach would be to suggest small tweaks to existing functionality. Like:

*Tweaking Death Shroud by allowing siphons and signet of vampirism to work while transformed would help the Necromancer class with attrition issues. *

Balefire.7592:

Possessing a clear design goal is different from being straightforward.

No, I’m pretty sure that having a clear goal (even if arriving at that goal occurs over a road of many individual ideas) is being straightforward.

Balefire.7592:

Take Spinal Shivers. Currently, it is very straightforward – it does a few things, but does them consistently. Your version, while perhaps more powerful, has increased complexity simply based on the fact that it has variable end effects.

Again, the new [Spinal Shivers] possesses a very straightforward design. It still does only 2 very well-defined things. Just because it uses a charge-up mechanic doesn’t change that. It’s still a very simple ability; it’s just that the cast-time and AoE turns it into a powerful skill that requires proper positioning, timing and/or team support to use.

Balefire.7592:

Another example would be your version of blood curse. Currently it bleeds, bleeds, poisons. Each hit is defined, and will only do one thing. You have increased the complexity of skill by attaching not one, but two conditional effect modifiers to it.

Once more, if you read it, the change to [Blood Curse] clearly just makes the ability into a single-skill, 3-part auto-attack. It’s not like my suggestion to [Blood Curse] is going to magically increase the difficulty of pressing 1 over and over again.

Balefire.7592:

Not only that, but I’m personally totally lost regarding it’s AoE applications and it’s variable nature – if I strike a bleeding foe, will foes around it get bleeding or torment? What if I strike a tormented foe? Do the conditions of nearby foes matter? What exactly happens if I hit a foe with torment, but not bleeding?

That is actually a good point. I sort of forgot that I had made it into an AoE skill just to give it more niche power in team-fights. I suppose coding all of that to interact properly with multiple foes would be actually pretty difficult. I guess it could be OK as just a single-target skill.

Balefire.7592:

The biggest source of complexity creep here is your mechanic suggestion. New necros already have difficulty learning how and when to use death shroud properly – adding additional skills, especially ones tied to an entirely different resource, will only complicate things. No other class has to manage two resource bars,

Death Shroud and what would be “Blood Energy” are both very, very simple resource mechanics in their own right that don’t really require any constant management. The facts that Death Shroud is only tied to a single skill and that Blood Energy would only be tied to 3 keep those respective mechanics very straight-to-the-point when it comes to “managing” the resource. We aren’t talking GW1 energy here that had to be managed across a possible 8 skills that could consume or refund varying amounts of a single resource.

Now, if you’re talking about WHEN to use Death Shroud, that’s a completely different topic that, yes, actually does depend on the player’s level of experience, reaction-time and situational awareness.

Balefire.7592:

and when you figure in minions, it pushes it over the edge.

Minions aren’t complex. You just push the buttons when you have a target. It’s like saying that using a Ranger pet is complex. There’s no way for it to be complex because it’s just a single skill and the AI does the rest of the work for you.

Balefire.7592:

Moreover, are blood power skills available in death shroud?

Death Shroud locks all skills except your 5 weapon skills.

Balefire.7592:

Can I generate blood power in death shroud?

You can’t heal while in Death Shroud. Blood Energy is generated by healing.

Balefire.7592:

If not, why are my profession mechanics meant to clash in this way?

Think of it as a separate weapon swap that you always have available.

Balefire.7592:

Will blood power skills generate life force?

That actually wouldn’t be a bad idea. That could either come directly from a blood magic spell or maybe from a traited blood magic spell.

Balefire.7592:

How will my profession trait resource (life force pool) affect blood power?

It wouldn’t at all.

Balefire.7592:

What traits will be updated to affect it, if any?

I’m not making the traits; simply making the skills for now. The ideal would be to replace some less than useful traits with blood magic spell traits, though.

Balefire.7592:

You have also made several changes that weaken skills without any apparent reason. Why does Reaper’s Mark have to have a double-activation skill when Static Field doesn’t?

You can’t set a [Static Field] down at a location and then trigger it later to AoE stun everyone inside of it. Working with the marks has been difficult because of their original “triggered” design. I was thinking of going back to [Reaper’s Mark] to retool it. Truth be told, if it worked like [Static Field], except that it inflicted 1 second of fear, that could be kind of cool.

Balefire.7592:

Lastly, I don’t disagree with the idea of modifying things to increase attrition and sustain, but frankly, I fail to see how adding another resource bar and modifying a handful of skills (note that few of the skills you changed are truly defensive) will achieve that.

Via general skill changes, the Necromancer can transition from a super-spam DoT DPS paradigm into an actual attrition-control paradigm with damage and support options. As it stands, there aren’t enough skills available to the Necromancer to properly do this without completely deleting some skills and adding in full replacements. Thus, we have the Blood Energy mechanic.

Balefire.7592:

The reason I suggested you post this in the Necro forum isn’t because I want to see your ideas get torn into (which will certainly happen) – it’s because a lot of these suggestions seem misguided in terms of achieving the attrition play style most Necromancer would like to see. I post in those forums daily, so trust me when I say this – a lot of these changes aren’t what we’re looking for.

Then bring your buddies here. I’ll stick to my guns all day. I’ve got everything that I need to say written up at the top of this thread, and this thread belongs on this forum.

Ghostextechnica.3270:

I agree that Necros have an identity crisis – but giant sweeping changes to lots of skills that would require months of work to implement isn’t the way to get things done.

Even the balance forum guidelines note:

“Be mindful of scope. It takes design, development and testing time in order to make a new feature or revise an old one. Keep scope/work/time/resources in mind when you make your suggestions.”

I’m very aware of that line, but this game needs far more than just little tweaks here and there. Specifically on the topic of the Necromancer, it needs a lot more work than just a few changes if it wants to come into line with what it’s original class philosophy description details. And truly, that sort of intense work would be for the best.

Ghostextechnica.3270:

A better approach would be to suggest small tweaks to existing functionality. Like:

*Tweaking Death Shroud by allowing siphons and signet of vampirism to work while transformed would help the Necromancer class with attrition issues. *

Except that it’s not fair to work with the attrition issue and simultaneously not address the fact that Necromancer is a no-skill, spam-all-buttons ranged DoT DPS class when rolled with conditions that doesn’t resemble anything like an attrition-control class. Giving a DPS class more attrition-based passive bonuses is just making the DPS class more overpowered. That’s one of the biggest balance issues with Warrior right now.

Suffice it to say that complexity is judged by it’s opposite – simple, elegant solutions tend to work out better. If you think some of these things are truly simple, than I’m afraid the disparity in our frame of reference is quite large, and we’ll just have to agree to disagree on several notes. I currently don’t have the time to delve further into commentary regarding each individual change, but I might PM you later.

Swagg.9236:

Then bring your buddies here. I’ll stick to my guns all day. I’ve got everything that I need to say written up at the top of this thread, and this thread belongs on this forum.

I get that you want to have one thread for each profession here. I’m not saying it doesn’t belong here, I’m just saying it would be worthwhile to post it there as well for further feedback. I can’t really force them to come here and comment.
Like I said, the Necro community knows what changes they want, and how they want them. And a lot of these suggestions simply don’t line up with the consensus. By involving the community, you allow yourself to develop suggestions that both achieve your stated goal and make players happy. ANet may or may not give any regard to these ideas, but one this is certain: forcing Necros to swallow a bunch of changes they don’t want will not please them, and is a quick way to diminish their involvement in the game, at least as a Necromancer.

Balefire.7592:

Like I said, the Necro community knows what changes they want, and how they want them.

This isn’t about what “the Necro community” wants; it’s about what’s best for the game.

Well-cued, wind-up, powerful ranged abilities is what this game needs; not spammy throw-away ranged skills on short cool-downs that blur into a beam attack of damage and conditions that not even skilled players or seasoned shoutcasters can often interpret properly. Necromancer has been fundamentally broken since creation with regards to its identity on the battlefield and how it contributes its damage. I understand that Necromancer players have become accustomed to playing with a mostly broken class, but it’s time to fix it.

Swagg.9236:

Balefire.7592:

Like I said, the Necro community knows what changes they want, and how they want them.

This isn’t about what “the Necro community” wants; it’s about what’s best for the game. Well-cued, wind-up, powerful ranged abilities is what this game needs; not spammy throw-away ranged skills on short cool-downs that blur into a beam attack of damage and conditions that not even skilled players or seasoned shoutcasters can often interpret properly. Necromancer has been fundamentally broken since creation with regards to its identity on the battlefield and how it contributes its damage. I understand that Necromancer players have become accustomed to playing with a mostly broken class, but it’s time to fix it.

Way to twist my words. Not once have I stated what Necromancers actually want, so you’re fairly off-base here in presuming anything. We know what we are about – all of that criticism you read about faceroll condispam is pointed directly at us.We’re also distinctly aware that we have terrible attrition. You’re 100% right in saying Necromancers need better tells, less condition spam, and better attrition mechanics. None of those things are exactly secrets. That doesn’t, however, mean your suggestions are (A) going achieve those things, (B) the best way to achieve those things, © what ANET intends for Necromancers, or (D) going to be willingly accepted by the player base.
There are various ways achieve balance for the Necromancer without following your specific suggestions, which you are promoting unilaterally. Unless you are on the Balance Team, your opinions are worth as much as anyone else’s – no more, no less. If anything, a concerted community effort in promoting changes is more likely to get the attention of, and be supported b ArenaNet, as evidenced by the CDIs. As such, you may be interested in, you know, actually consulting the players that will have to deal with your supposed changes.

an attrition class focuses on mitigating bursts of damage and outlasting its enemies while slowly whittling away at their life pool. you will have very little burst damage, but very strong sustained damage.

does your overhaul do this? seriously, tl;dr. i might try to sift thru your engi post when you make it, since im more knowledgeable.

also, i happened to skim spinal shivers. charging skills are bad cuz the opponent cant reasonably predict the outcome. you may be able to get a feel for how long somethings been charging, but you never really know if its gonna remove 2 boons or 3… and that could be the difference between say… 3 mile island and chernobyl. what if they see you charging, and dodge, and their evasion frames end before you lift your finger? they cant reasonably expect to be hit, and yet… they get nuked despite having the presence of mind to evade. its really ambiguous and doesnt promote counterplay.

i know ive seen a charging, scaling skill somewhere in pve recently (and i was surprised and pleased)… but its a whole different matter in pvp. its just… uncompetitive, unfair. and its fine in pve cuz your fighting yourself, not another.

I aggree that the necromancer needs some improvement to it attrition capabilities (more specifically sustain) but I think a total reconstruction of the class is too muc.h I think we can achieve more with smaller changes at the right place. So I suggest the following:

-let healing go through death shroud and make it possible to revive in it as well
-buff vampiric and vampiric precision but add an icd of 1/2~3/4 s
-remove/ merge a grandmaster trait in death magic and give something really defensive
-remove/merge the minion related minor traits in death magic and give something defensive

Balefire.7592:

Way to twist my words. Not once have I stated what Necromancers actually want, so you’re fairly off-base here in presuming anything.

I’m not so sure. My suggestions are all about bringing cast-time-bound positioning into the game, adding tells to ranged Necromancer skills, expanding the usefulness of underused Necromancer skills, and reducing the general condition spam aspect of Necromancer that contributes to the current no-skill condispam meta.

Before this post, you told me how you wanted to see my ideas torn to pieces by the Necromancer forums. To that effect, it seems like the Necromancer forum (and thereby the vocal Necromancer community) doesn’t seem to want this kind of balance for their class. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, though.

Balefire.7592:

There are various ways achieve balance for the Necromancer without following your specific suggestions,

I’m really not seeing any other person making concrete balance suggestions, though. I’ve said this before: the time for “I think X should be a little more Y because Z” is over. Playing tiddlywinks with the vague concept of what could maybe be balanced isn’t going to save this game. Somebody’s gotta take a stand.

Balefire.7592:

Unless you are on the Balance Team, your opinions are worth as much as anyone else’s – no more, no less.

Dream big and make a scene.

Balefire.7592:

If anything, a concerted community effort in promoting changes is more likely to get the attention of, and be supported b ArenaNet, as evidenced by the CDIs.

Even a concerted community effort must be voiced through a single person; otherwise the entire effort comes out in a messy din through which nobody is going to take time to sift. Those CDI threads are no better than the 20-or-so post thread that I made by myself regarding collective profession balance. At least that thread had a clear goal at the top instead of hundreds of separate ideas and goals strung together in no particular order. That said, I’m more than happy to have some discussion with the vocal Necromancer community in general regarding my proposals.

Balefire.7592:

As such, you may be interested in, you know, actually consulting the players that will have to deal with your supposed changes.

As I’ve said before, I’m wary of what the typical player wants for this game with regards to his/her own preferred profession. There is a reason only a few people are part of a balance team.

Regardless, I’ll go ahead and make a link thread on the Necromancer forum. I honestly welcome the discussion. I have clear goals and the means to argue them. And if I get some new ideas going from the discussion sparked by reaching out to the vocal Necromancer community, then we can all win.

insanemaniac.2456:

an attrition class focuses on mitigating bursts of damage and outlasting its enemies while slowly whittling away at their life pool. you will have very little burst damage, but very strong sustained damage.

does your overhaul do this? seriously, tl;dr. i might try to sift thru your engi post when you make it, since im more knowledgeable.

Well, it’s hard to make Necromancer into a well-crafted attrition class without heavily redoing a lot of skills. I could probably remake [Grasping Dead] into a better sustained damage AoE similar to [Lava Font]. That could probably help out the scepter a lot. But overall, yes, the goal with my suggestions was to make the Necromancer into a source of well-cued sustained damage, CC and even support healing.

insanemaniac.2456:

also, i happened to skim spinal shivers. charging skills are bad cuz the opponent cant reasonably predict the outcome. you may be able to get a feel for how long somethings been charging, but you never really know if its gonna remove 2 boons or 3… and that could be the difference between say… 3 mile island and chernobyl. what if they see you charging, and dodge, and their evasion frames end before you lift your finger? they cant reasonably expect to be hit, and yet… they get nuked despite having the presence of mind to evade. its really ambiguous and doesnt promote counterplay.

The counter-play for powerful charge-up AoE skills is either positioning (if the player manages to get the skill off) or pressuring the player (making sure that the player doesn’t have enough time to fully charge up the skill for maximum effect). This sort of counter-play adds depth to combat by passively assigning positions to classes with these sorts of long charge-up skills. It adds more depth to PvP for the Necromancer than there currently is. If you’re not rolling power glass (and it’s still true to an extent for that build), Necromancers just faff about across the field pressing buttons because their appropriate positioning with regards to any given target is so poorly defined due to the spammy nature of their skills. Charge-up skills—or at least skills with longer cast-times—present on the Necromancer weapon skills bar would help fix this.

Tim.6450:

I aggree that the necromancer needs some improvement to it attrition capabilities (more specifically sustain) but I think a total reconstruction of the class is too muc.h

The Necromancer is functionally broken in a lot of ways. It’s going to take a lot to make it into a class that properly belongs in GW2 or lives up to its intended design for GW2.

Tim.6450:

I think we can achieve more with smaller changes at the right place. So I suggest the following:

-let healing go through death shroud and make it possible to revive in it as well
-buff vampiric and vampiric precision but add an icd of 1/2~3/4 s
-remove/ merge a grandmaster trait in death magic and give something really defensive
-remove/merge the minion related minor traits in death magic and give something defensive

Again, none of those changes address the true issues associated with the Necromancer class. Furthermore, they aren’t even well defined. Things like “Give something defensive” aren’t exactly a strong place to start when mapping out a goal that is going to improve the playability or better define the function of a class. “Buff.” Buff by how much? Moreover, before we buff any attrition/survivability aspect of the Necromancer (as you suggest with the Death Shroud idea), it would be best to properly balance how they inflict damage.

This class needs some dramatic changes. I’ve already said why. Now I’m presenting concrete options.

I have no idea what any of these skills do except for the new Rending Claws. What does Scepter 3 do? You channel a spell on the target which applies a stacking debuff, and whenever that target is struck by a debuff, they explode with poison, applying poison to all nearby enemies and healing to all nearby allies for an amount dependent on the number of stacks? Did I miss anything?

The Mark and Scepter 2 changes alter the pace of combat immensely, especially the Reaper’s Mark change. While these skills could use better telegraphing, this seems like a weird and counterintuitive way to do it. The Reaper’s Mark change in particular drastically changes how the skill operates and is incredibly hindering for Necros roaming- Or indeed necros trying to move anywhere.

Signet of Spite change is cool. It sounds hilarious because you’re basically firing Bling Blast, but the skill is kind of an i-win button in some situations at the moment so some more fiddling with it is a good idea.

Really, these changes seem to slot into a huuuuuge overhaul of the tone and pacing of combat, and I don’t think that’s what the game needs. If these skills are in a vacuum, then Necros simply become even slower compared to the rest of the game’s classes.

If you ask me, there are maybe five things that need to get fixed;
1. Make Signet of Spite more counterable
2. Swap Reanimator and PotH with something useful
3. Figure out what you’re doing with Dhuumfire already
4. Fiddle with marks a bit
5. Put a floatie on my golem.

Swagg.9236:

insanemaniac.2456:

an attrition class focuses on mitigating bursts of damage and outlasting its enemies while slowly whittling away at their life pool. you will have very little burst damage, but very strong sustained damage.

does your overhaul do this? seriously, tl;dr. i might try to sift thru your engi post when you make it, since im more knowledgeable.

Well, it’s hard to make Necromancer into a well-crafted attrition class without heavily redoing a lot of skills. I could probably remake [Grasping Dead] into a better sustained damage AoE similar to [Lava Font]. That could probably help out the scepter a lot. But overall, yes, the goal with my suggestions was to make the Necromancer into a source of well-cued sustained damage, CC and even support healing.

insanemaniac.2456:

also, i happened to skim spinal shivers. charging skills are bad cuz the opponent cant reasonably predict the outcome. you may be able to get a feel for how long somethings been charging, but you never really know if its gonna remove 2 boons or 3… and that could be the difference between say… 3 mile island and chernobyl. what if they see you charging, and dodge, and their evasion frames end before you lift your finger? they cant reasonably expect to be hit, and yet… they get nuked despite having the presence of mind to evade. its really ambiguous and doesnt promote counterplay.

The counter-play for powerful charge-up AoE skills is either positioning (if the player manages to get the skill off) or pressuring the player (making sure that the player doesn’t have enough time to fully charge up the skill for maximum effect). This sort of counter-play adds depth to combat by passively assigning positions to classes with these sorts of long charge-up skills. It adds more depth to PvP for the Necromancer than there currently is. If you’re not rolling power glass (and it’s still true to an extent for that build), Necromancers just faff about across the field pressing buttons because their appropriate positioning with regards to any given target is so poorly defined due to the spammy nature of their skills. Charge-up skills—or at least skills with longer cast-times—present on the Necromancer weapon skills bar would help fix this.

i wont disagree that putting long cast times in for powerful skills is bad or anything… long cast times are fine and having skills powerful enough to justify really obvious and/or long animations is healthy. but charging? no. the skill becomes unreliable and inconsistent, and with a cast time longer than a dodge a player cant reliably judge when to counter the skill.

it breaks from almost every other skill in the game…. except norn leopard form 3 (the 5k range dash), which is only ever used as a strong escape at the cost of your elite skill slot. and if it IS used offensively, the tell for when to dodge is not based on an opponents animation, but on their proximity and velocity… which are hugely obvious in comparison.

Marks are hardly powerful enough to warrant such a blatant warning. I get why some skills need this pre-cast warning, but marks are generally underwhelming.

Oh, its you again. Hi.
Axe and dagger – solid
Focus – Want it but we have a lot of aoe chill potential already. Maybe chill every other second, or only if a boon is removed?
Scepter – Way to drastic. Stacking bleeds is the main source of condi necro damage, and scepter is the main source of bleeds. By eliminating that, idk man. The torment might compensate, but the way you have it now, we would be stacking vuln, which we can already do with axe. I dont get it. I like the idea of the other scepter skills, except that foul feasts additional damage per condition is way too high.
Staff – Reapers mark is cool. Again, those after cast delays are not good for the staff at all. The way you have it now, practically no one would get hit by a mark. If you think more obvious skill animations are needed, I would start with the staff and end with the staff. Putting more obvious indicators on both the staff and marks is overkill and would render the staff very underpowered.
Trait reworks – sure dont care
Blood magic spells – no comment

I love your suggestions but like many said, this game is more for casuals and as such is kept as simple as possible. You can’t even expect people to read the actual tooltipps so most of your gold-worth suggestions can be rejected by the buzzword “complexity creep”.
Sadly you have the wrong audience for such changes as well as the wrong basic game.

I admire your passion and dedication.

Phadde.7362:

I admire your passion and dedication.

Ah, thanks.

Escadin.9482:

I love your suggestions but like many said, this game is more for casuals and as such is kept as simple as possible. You can’t even expect people to read the actual tooltipps so most of your gold-worth suggestions can be rejected by the buzzword “complexity creep”.
Sadly you have the wrong audience for such changes as well as the wrong basic game.

I’ve never actually had someone tell me this before. I can’t tell if you’re serious. If you are serious, I appreciate the comment. And despite what people may say about “complexity creep,” “burden of knowledge,” or whatever else is held in reserve to defend the current GW2 meta, I have no intention of stopping. There are important issues that someone has to address. I’ll do it if nobody else will.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Oh, its you again. Hi.

Hi.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Focus – Want it but we have a lot of aoe chill potential already. Maybe chill every other second, or only if a boon is removed?

I changed the skill now. I think that having it just chill at the start as a sign that the charge-up is activating is a better design for the skill as a whole.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Scepter – Way to drastic. Stacking bleeds is the main source of condi necro damage, and scepter is the main source of bleeds.

Condi necro gets a lot of damage from passive procs actually. Massive bleed stacks are often the result of the Necromancer having already pressed all of his buttons. In either case, it’s a cheesy, no-skill play-style that makes timing, positioning or opponent playstyle irrelevant because your condi pressure is basically a poorly telegraphed beam-attack that opponents just have to eat since no well-timed dodge or block is going to negate it.

That is the issue of condimeta: low-recharge, throw-away skill spam just turns every encounter into a fight between who can press the most buttons the fastest. By shifting damage back towards power and limiting conditions, we can fix how this game is played. The Necromancer can be an attrition class via sustained direct damage that can be better tracked by opponents without completely removing the Necromancer from the game.

Stand The Wall.6987:

except that foul feasts additional damage per condition is way too high.

I actually did adjust that slightly.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Staff – Reapers mark is cool. Again, those after cast delays are not good for the staff at all. The way you have it now, practically no one would get hit by a mark.

Marks as they are are—again—just a poorly-cued beam attack that opponent just sort of has to eat most the time unless that player has decent LoS or can spam dodges and evades.

Moreover, it isn’t hard to hit a player with a 180-radius [Lava Font] so long as you lead the target properly. Furthermore, the advantage of Necro Staff Marks is that they don’t fade away if they aren’t triggered. The adjusted Necro Staff could be the new [Mine Kit] area-denial weapon while also remaining an effective tool in active combat so long as the Necromancer leads targets properly. My changes would not only preserve the initial function of Necro Staff Marks, but it would also increase the skill cap on the weapon set; something that this game could use.

Stand The Wall.6987:

Blood magic spells – no comment

I understand.

Updates to the Scepter and Focus skills.

Sarrs.4831:

What does Scepter 3 do? You channel a spell on the target which applies a stacking debuff, and whenever that target is struck by a debuff, they explode with poison, applying poison to all nearby enemies and healing to all nearby allies for an amount dependent on the number of stacks? Did I miss anything?

Yes, except that it doesn’t apply poison to nearby enemies.

Sarrs.4831:

The Mark and Scepter 2 changes alter the pace of combat immensely, especially the Reaper’s Mark change. While these skills could use better telegraphing, this seems like a weird and counterintuitive way to do it.

Not at all. The Elementalist has loads of skills like this. When it comes to powerful AoE attacks, making them visible to opponents before they go off is a fair way to balance them given that one can choose where to put the AoEs on the ground. By adding a delay to a ground-targeted AoE, the skill gains a higher skillcap based on the caster’s ability to predict and lead a target so as to hit with a delayed AoE.

Sarrs.4831:

The Reaper’s Mark change in particular drastically changes how the skill operates and is incredibly hindering for Necros roaming- Or indeed necros trying to move anywhere.

Area denial is a stationary business. That said, there’s no reason why a Necromancer shouldn’t be able to control enemy movement in any location so long as that Necromancer has the situational awareness and clairvoyance to set up a staggered barrier of Marks between an opponent and him/herself. That’s the benefit of Marks afterall: they don’t go away even if your opponent doesn’t trigger them immediately.

As for roaming, Necromancers can learn to use themselves as bait so as to ensure hits with Marks. It’s a keen play to do something like cast a [Meteor Shower] over top of yourself as you await a player to engage in melee, or cast one in a place to which you could then immediately move. The key to playing with powerful AoE charge-up skills is to always be thinking ahead of your opponent with regards to positioning and timing.

That all said, I am open to suggestions for what [Reaper’s Mark] could be aside from just another delayed Mark.

Sarrs.4831:

Really, these changes seem to slot into a huuuuuge overhaul of the tone and pacing of combat, and I don’t think that’s what the game needs. If these skills are in a vacuum, then Necros simply become even slower compared to the rest of the game’s classes.

I’ve said before, this thread is part of a series. I swear, most people on this site think in a vacuum when it comes to class balance. I’m thinking in broad terms, don’t you worry.

Sarrs.4831:

If you ask me, there are maybe five things that need to get fixed;
1. Make Signet of Spite more counterable

Already did that.

Sarrs.4831:

2. Swap Reanimator and PotH with something useful

And here we are again with “something useful.” “Something useful” isn’t going to get anything done. We need concrete suggestions here. This is no time to pillowfight with vague ideas, this game needs saving.

Sarrs.4831:

3. Figure out what you’re doing with Dhuumfire already

Already done.

Sarrs.4831:

4. Fiddle with marks a bit

You’re being vague again.

Sarrs.4831:

5. Put a floatie on my golem.

After the game is saved, this is top priority.

Not at all. The Elementalist has loads of skills like this. When it comes to powerful AoE attacks, making them visible to opponents before they go off is a fair way to balance them given that one can choose where to put the AoEs on the ground. By adding a delay to a ground-targeted AoE, the skill gains a higher skillcap based on the caster’s ability to predict and lead a target so as to hit with a delayed AoE.

Equating Elementalists to Necromancers isn’t really that fair because elementalists are a much faster paced class and their ability rotations are so wildly different from Necromancers, most notably because you can instantly flip into any of your attunements after you’ve ‘blown your load’. You’re comparing a class with at least 20 weapon skills at any one time to a class with between 9 and 14(not including your pet project).

The only skill that has a similar power level to MoB in the Elementalist’s kitten nal is Shatterstone. Do people even actually cast that? Is MoB getting drastically raised? We’re starting to get into very serious issues of scope when we overhaul the game.

As for roaming, Necromancers can learn to use themselves as bait so as to ensure hits with Marks. It’s a keen play to do something like cast a [Meteor Shower] over top of yourself as you await a player to engage in melee, or cast one in a place to which you could then immediately move. The key to playing with powerful AoE charge-up skills is to always be thinking ahead of your opponent with regards to positioning and timing.

The first block of this is more or less irrelevant because it’s already the case. You can already pre-deploy your marks defensively; although using some of them in that capacity is pretty silly (putrid mark). This change just pushes them further towards exclusive use in this capacity.

As for roaming I don’t really understand how all this already isn’t the case. Thief is in stealth- You slap a Reaper’s Mark right under your kitten so you can pop him when he tries to backstab you, or you flash out the Mark when he stabs you in the first place. Necros already have to be thinking ahead of their opponent on position and timing because they don’t want to turn their marks into dodge bait (Or maybe they do!).

I’ve said before, this thread is part of a series. I swear, most people on this site think in a vacuum when it comes to class balance. I’m thinking in broad terms, don’t you worry.

Thanks for the condescension.

Sarrs.4831:

If you ask me, there are maybe five things that need to get fixed;
1. Make Signet of Spite more counterable

Already did that.

Good job. Hopefully it happens.

Sarrs.4831:

2. Swap Reanimator and PotH with something useful

And here we are again with “something useful.” “Something useful” isn’t going to get anything done. We need concrete suggestions here. This is no time to pillowfight with vague ideas, this game needs saving.

I don’t have to be a chef to tell whether a meal tastes rubbish. If you want concrete and very lazy off-hand suggestions;

5pt; Barbed Ward; whenever you are critically struck, you have a 25% chance to deal damage and cause 3×4sec Vulnerability to enemies within 180 radius. 10 second cooldown.

15pt; Dark Heart; when your health is reduced by 10% in a single strike, drop a (3sec duration) Well of Darkness at your current position. 90sec ICD.

There’s a huge 4 page thread on the necro forums on PotH and Reanimator with a big pile of ideas which anunciate the problems and offer solutions and apparently people are already on the case in ANet so me getting too in detail about it is ultimately pointless.

Sarrs.4831:

3. Figure out what you’re doing with Dhuumfire already

Already done.

Basically what’s already confirmed to be happening except ANet’s implementation is without the counterintuitive 15 sec CD.

Sarrs.4831:

4. Fiddle with marks a bit

You’re being vague again.

Okay. Give them more distinct circles so you can actually tell which mark is which from a distance and give Putrid Mark a different animation so it can be more easily dodged.

Sarrs.4831:

5. Put a floatie on my golem.

After the game is saved, this is top priority.

Keep reasonable scope in mind. Even if ANet agreed 100% with everything you say, it’s entirely likely that they still can’t change it.

Sarrs.4831:

Equating Elementalists to Necromancers isn’t really that fair because elementalists are a much faster paced class and their ability rotations are so wildly different from Necromancers, most notably because you can instantly flip into any of your attunements after you’ve ‘blown your load’. You’re comparing a class with at least 20 weapon skills at any one time to a class with between 9 and 14(not including your pet project).

You’re thinking of d/d or s/d Elementalists. While d/d is mostly alright because it’s mostly a melee-based class and therefore you can anticipate that, s/d is something that I’m going to address in another thread. Like I said, I’m thinking about all of these variables.

That aside, staff Elementalist is one of the most well balanced and well crafted weapon sets in the game. It’s AoE-based, but all of the AoEs give opponent’s ample time to counter those AoEs by either positioning or a timed dodge/block. It’s a slow, hard-hitting, wind-up spec that can snowball against an opponent if left unchecked. I’m adapting the sort of ideal ranged abilities from staff Elementalist for the Necromancer as a means to better cue Necromancer attacks without ruining their viability as skills.

Sarrs.4831:

The first block of this is more or less irrelevant because it’s already the case. You can already pre-deploy your marks defensively; although using some of them in that capacity is pretty silly (putrid mark). This change just pushes them further towards exclusive use in this capacity.

That’s what an AoE is, though. It’s bound to a target location. It’s fundamental design makes it difficult to use in an open area without proper timing, positioning and clairvoyance. That’s why they’re so great: they have versatility based on the player’s skill. Are you going to be the guy who just casts everything under your feet? Or are you going to be the guy to set up a mind field through which you plan to maneuver strategically as your opponent attempts to engage you?

Sarrs.4831:

Thanks for the condescension.

I’m sorry. It’s just, when I put “This thread is part of a series” at the top of the actual thread, and then people say “This is going to put Necromancer at the bottom of the barrel!” it just makes me feel like nobody cares. Simply nobody cares. People just lose their minds when something broken about their own individual class is made balanced and they don’t even consider the grander scale of things when it comes to balancing an MMO. They’re just too worried that their one skill is suddenly not as overpowered as it once was.

It’s discouraging. I am sorry for snapping, though.

Sarrs.4831:

I don’t have to be a chef to tell whether a meal tastes rubbish. If you want concrete and very lazy off-hand suggestions;

Sure, but if the chef doesn’t understand why the meal is rubbish, then it’s on somebody to instruct that chef in the proper way to make that meal. Otherwise, he’s just going to keep making rubbish meals for everyone.

Sarrs.4831:

5pt; Barbed Ward; whenever you are critically struck, you have a 25% chance to deal damage and cause 3×4sec Vulnerability to enemies within 180 radius. 10 second cooldown.

15pt; Dark Heart; when your health is reduced by 10% in a single strike, drop a (3sec duration) Well of Darkness at your current position. 90sec ICD.

There’s a huge 4 page thread on the necro forums on PotH and Reanimator with a big pile of ideas which anunciate the problems and offer solutions and apparently people are already on the case in ANet so me getting too in detail about it is ultimately pointless.

Now there we go. Those are some concrete ideas with which other people can work. I’ll take a look at that thread if I can find it. If you could post a link, that’d be great too.

Sarrs.4831:

3. Figure out what you’re doing with Dhuumfire already

Already done.

Basically what’s already confirmed to be happening except ANet’s implementation is without the counterintuitive 15 sec CD. [/quote]

Burning is a very powerful skill when thrown into a build with maximum condition damage. Condimeta has already made powermeta rather obsolete by proving that anyone can kill an opponent by just spamming skills willynilly so long as they have traits and passive procs everywhere to carry them. Spamming poorly defined point-and-click attacks at an opponent is how an FPS plays. GW2 is an MMO. By limiting the effectiveness of passive procs, I’m saving this game from being an auto-aimed FPS.

Sarrs.4831:

4. Fiddle with marks a bit

You’re being vague again.

Okay. Give them more distinct circles so you can actually tell which mark is which from a distance and give Putrid Mark a different animation so it can be more easily dodged. [/quote]

Making the marks look bright, pretty and elaborate won’t make a difference if you just press the button and your mark immediately explodes on your target so long as you have it within the enormous AoE reticle. That’s why I proposed the delays. Delaying the AoE gives an opponent some counter-play. Otherwise it just turns the series of AoEs into a big, moving AoE beam attack that people just sort of have to eat or spam dodges randomly to avoid. It’s poor design for the kind of combat fundamentals that are supposed to govern GW2.

Sarrs.4831:

Keep reasonable scope in mind. Even if ANet agreed 100% with everything you say, it’s entirely likely that they still can’t change it.

The reasonable scope defined by ANet is unreasonable. They want little changes. However, only big changes are what will save this game.

Update to [Signet of Spite].

Tweaked a few damage numbers. [Grasping Dead] received a small update.

Similar to your ranger thread I feel that there are much that would be nice and some inovation in it, what I feel would make more of a difference to make this into an attrition class would however rather be an introduction of hexes (I figure this sounds silly to anyone with skills in programming since I have a feeling it would be very hard to implement), skills of the necro in GW1 like life transfer and spiteful spirit and insidious parasite are some of the things i miss with the necro, currently necromancers feel more like a class with some dps and loads of hp (high hp pool + death shroud hp pool).

As for the change with blood magic thing, I think this would be inbalanced, I do like the thought but since this essentially would give necros a second mechanic it just feels imba.

Having read through your proposals, I especially like the changes to Staff Marks and other Weapon Skill changes, aside from the Scepter 1 auto and a few other things.

One thing that I appreciate is the attempt to give Necromancer a more clearly defined role. That said, I do agree with the other posters here that adding a secondary Class Mechanic in the form of the Blood Magic spells is not the way to go. 2 class mechanics introduces not only another resource for Necromancers to have to manage, it also introduces massive potential for imbalance until the design could be iterated into. Adding Blood Magic would essentially require the Necromancer profession be scrapped and remade anew to incorporate Trait support, in addition to rebalancing nearly all weapons and utilities. I appreciate the sentiment behind it, but I feel that a lot of the utility you are proposing could instead be folded into existing Utilities and Weapon skills through the Charge skill and Chain skill mechanics

Onto specifics:

Scepter main-hand skills
[Blood Curse]: Name changed to [Putrid Strike] (1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED; AUTO-ATTACK CHAIN REMOVED
• Cast-time: 1 second
• Cast out a bolt of energy at your foe that inflicts bleeding. If you strike a foe that is already bleeding, you instead inflict torment. If you strike a foe that is already tormented, you instead inflict vulnerability and gain life force.
• Damage: 229 (0.55)
• Bleeding (1): 3 seconds
• Torment (1): 3 seconds
• Vulnerability (1): 6 seconds
• Life force gained: 4%
• Range: 1200
  • [Putrid Strike] uses the Elementalist [Fireball] projectile speed, arc and pathing.
  • [Putrid Strike] uses a bright-green colored [Ether Bolt] projectile.
  • After-cast adjusted to 0.15 second.

• While I appreciate the idea behind adding risk to an auto-attack chain by making the projectile slow, the condition spam is probably counter-intuitive to your design goal – 3 conditions that could potentially be used as cover is just as bad as the current autoattack that Bleeds and Poisons, if not worse – replacing them with Bleed, Torment and Vulnerability leaves you where you started. Vulnerability in a condition-oriented Weapon especially, is nothing more than a junk covering condition and feels out of place.

[Grasping Dead] (2-1)

• FUNCTIONALITY CHANGED
• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 6 seconds
• Raise skeletal hands from the ground to damage foes at the target location.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage (3x): 732 (0.75)
• Duration: 3 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Range: 900
  • This skill hits up to 5 foes.
  • Uses a ½-second after-cast animation delay (skill cannot be used while activating another skill).
  • For the first second, nothing happens. [Grasping Dead] produces a red circle with skeletal hands dotting the ground after the cast. After one second, the animated arms then trigger the hand-grabbing animation once each second, inflicting damage with each pulse.
  • This skill shares the same pulse schedule as [Lava Font].
  • This skill chains into another skill upon cast completion: [Vile Grasp].

[Vile Grasp] (2-2)

• Cast-time: 0
• Recharge: 15 seconds
• Conjure a hand above target area. After 1 second, the hand crashes into the ground, crippling and bleeding foes.
• Delay: 1 second
• Damage: 118 (0.4)
• Bleeding (3): 5 seconds
• Crippled: 5 seconds
• Radius: 180
• Range: 900
  • This chain skill remains active for 5 seconds.
  • This skill hits up to 5 foes.
  • This chain skill’s recharge or usage does not affect the recharge of [Grasping Dead]. The two skills share separate recharges and each will immediately to into recharge upon respective use.[/quote]

• If anything, I would move the Torment and Vulnerability from the auto to Grasping Dead, and put more Bleed stacks onto Vile Grasp . If Scepter is to be the condition spam weapon, then it should be as telegraphed and as “fair” as Power Spike. Cooldowns should then be reduced to compensate. I get the feeling from the chain that you want the application of condis to only happen on the second chain – if you want to make a condi-focused weapon, make it apply condis straight up to “telegraph” the weapon itself.

Continuing on from my previous post, onto the Blood Magic spells:

Blood Magic Spells – THE SKILLS CONTINUED
[Insidious Parasite]

• Cast-time: 5½ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 3000
• Corruption. Channel a spell over allies at target area. Allies under the effects of an insidious parasite steal life from foes that strike them for damage.
• Insidious Parasite (5): 5 seconds
• Life steal damage: 221 (0.5)
• Life steal heal: 370 (0.15)
• Maximum number of allies affected: 10
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Radius: 360
• Range: 1200
  • This skill pulses once each second. Each pulse grants 1 stack of Insidious Parasite to allies in the area that lasts for 5 seconds.
  • Each time that an ally under the effects of Insidious Parasite takes damage (condition damage or direct damage), that ally loses 1 stack of Insidious Parasite, heals health and damages the foes that damaged that ally. There is no internal cool-down for this effect.

As I mentioned earlier, I feel that the Necromancer would be better served by having some of the Blood Magic spells folded into existing Spells and utility.

• Insidious Parasite would be well served having its functionality folded into Well of Blood . As it stands, Well of Blood is rarely taken outside of PvE or WvW supporty builds due to its long CD, whilst its HoT nature offers little interaction with Enemies aside from drawing a lot of AoE fire.

• Folding the Life steal into Well of Blood and reducing the initial heal would bring Well of Blood more into prominence in all areas. It also provides the counter pressure necessary for Necro survivability due to few escapes.

Swagg.9236:

[Transfusion]

• Cast-time: 1½ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 3000
• Well. Target area pulses with blood energy, healing allies and curing conditions.
• Healing (5x): 1010 (0.5)
• Conditions cured: 3
• Duration: 5 seconds
• Combo Field: Water
• Radius: 240
• Range: 1200
  • This skill only cures conditions once: right after it is activated.

• To me, the skill feels like an uber version of Putrid Mark. So why not make Putrid mark just that? Have Putrid Mark transfer 1 condition per pulse for 3 pulses over 3 seconds. As for allies in the field, I’m unsure as to how the targeting would work, but it should also be “supporty” instead of being all about selfish utility.

• Necromancer seems to be Field heavy, but Finisher weak. All the same, more combo fields can’t hurt. Necromancer as a class is kind of facerolly; introducing the need for certain rotations to get Combo Finishers would not only increase utility and survivability but also support potential.

Finally, onto Defile Enchantments. I feel that the proposal is largely sound, however, giving a Boon Hate Meteor Shower to Necromancer doesn’t address the AOE “problem” of GW2.

[Defile Enchantments]

• Cast-time: 3¾ seconds
• Recharge: 60 seconds
• Blood energy: 4000
• Corruption. Channel a hex over the target location and make the ground bubble. When these bubbles pop, they damage and remove up to 1 boon from foes. Foes without boons that are struck by one of these bubbles are dazed.
• Mark of Apostasy duration: 7
• Damage: 244 (0.75)
• Bubble damage radius: 120
• Daze: 1 second
• Radius: 360
• Range: 1200
  • This skill functions the same as Elementlist [Meteor Shower] in how it decides to produce the bubbles based on how long the Necromancer channels the skill.
  • The time it takes for a bubble to appear and then pop, dealing damage and effects is 1 second.

• This one definitely is Utility slot worthy. Boon Hate along with interrupts is extremely powerful and is a powerful Shutdown/Control skill. Putting this on an independant bar is definitely OP.
• As a Corruption, an additional “cost” to such a powerful skill could be losing an equal number of Boons for each full second of channelling (up to 3)

To make it fit more into the current design paradigm of Necromancer and give Necromancer more control over where the Boon Hate lands, I would instead make it a Charge Skill and a Chain Skill:

• Charging the skill makes a special Desecrate Enchantments icon appear above the Necromancer’s head, just like the Reaper does for Necro Terror at the moment. The longer you charge, the more Mark of Apostasy charges you get.
• At full charge, the skill chains into Defile Enchantments . The Necromancer designates an area of radius 360 . The area pulses Chill for 1 second every second on foes caught in the area; and removes 1 Boon on impact. Bonus Damage on Boon Removal optional. The skill then chains into:
• Mark of Apostasy . The Necromancer may then lay down Marks of Apostasy (as many as there are charges) onto the designated area. The “bubbles” would remove Boons and/or Daze after the delay as originally proposed.

This “triple chain” not only gives Necromancer proper risk-reward for such a powerful skill, it also has plenty of opportunity for counterplay – from the long charge time, to being able to simply leave the area (after burning an escape or blink, but Still losing at least 1 Boon.) Finally, foes caught in the area are then forced to dance around exploding bubbles.

• This implementation is yet more defensive counterpressure that Arenanet seems to like to push for Necromancer
• By splitting the skill into a triple chain, balance is highly granular, allowing for adjustments to designated area, charge time ; even down to individual Marks.

Dont make a complete new class out of necros, they need number changes and traits that makes sense.

for example, there are a lot of build possible, that sound great on paper, but they simply dont work becaue of the bad scaling/numbers of some traits and some traits that you have to take (jagged horror).

builds that are possible on paper:

• vampiric build (<50hp per attack is not enough, ~20% of damage done would be ok)
• minion build (bad AI, damage is ok, bad support)
• power well build (jagged horror…)
• power axe/dagger
• scepter/staff-condition build

the last two are the only builds that actually work.

Some changes I would like to see:

• swap jagged horror with dark armor, and swap the other minor traits too.
• move terror to grandmaster (swap with 33% scepter trait) terror and dhuumfire are both strong conditions and you should go full offensive to get them.
• increase the scaling of bloodmagic traits to be able to play a “vampire”. Maybe even reduce active healing by some percent and give very good life steal.
• improve pet AI (generall AI problem)

Listen Swagg, I really admire the thought and energy you’re putting into your posts.

My one criticism, apart from the massive scope creep is the following (from the perspective of Ele and Necro being the two classes I play the most) …

I’m fed up with skills that pulse requiring CC to land the full potential. Also using fireball projectile behaviour as the basis for any other skill is not a good idea until they fix Ele staff auto-attacks.

Other than that I think you have some very interesting ideas. Nice job man.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Listen Swagg, I really admire the thought and energy you’re putting into your posts.

My one criticism, apart from the massive scope creep is the following (from the perspective of Ele and Necro being the two classes I play the most) …

I’m fed up with skills that pulse requiring CC to land the full potential.

That’s actually my favorite aspect of staff elementalist. However, staff elementalist also grants the player a lot of CC to control opponents. Necromancers really don’t get that, and it would be difficult to add, so I see your point about that.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Also using fireball projectile behaviour as the basis for any other skill is not a good idea until they fix Ele staff auto-attacks.

Actually, that’s also a good point. The reason I had [Putrid Strike] use the fireball projectile was because it originally had an AoE explosion when it hit. However, coding all of the effects and tracking them over multiple targets depending on whether or not [Putrid Strike] hit a patch of enemies proved a little overwhelming, so I decided to drop it. Given that it doesn’t have an AoE anymore, it would probably be best to change the projectile behaviour again, yes.

MarzAttakz.9608:

Other than that I think you have some very interesting ideas. Nice job man.

I appreciate it.

MonMalthias.4763:

-all of those good ideas-

Yes. YES.

You know, it was weird how I somehow just decided that the best way to fix Necromancer was by adding an extra mechanic. I guess it didn’t occur to me that all of those new ideas could actually just be folded into existing skills. I’m going to rework my entire post now. Blood Magic Spells are gone. I’m going to fold a lot of that CC and support into lack-luster Necromancer skills.

Lots of skill updates. Scepter, staff and utility/healing skill sections received the most updates. Also, I’ve removed the Blood Magic Spells section. It would be best to simply fold some new ideas/functionalities into already existing Necromancer skills instead of attempting to craft an entirely new mechanic.

Oh, right, I took out my suggestion for [Reaper’s Mark]. It is a really clunky suggestion in the end. I’m still somewhat at a loss for what it could be aside from just an AoE fear button. Maybe it should just remain an AoE fear button. Adding a short delay to it as I’ve done to the rest of the marks would work just fine, but I feel like that’d be just a bit of a lazy update.

Swagg.9236:

Oh, right, I took out my suggestion for [Reaper’s Mark]. It is a really clunky suggestion in the end. I’m still somewhat at a loss for what it could be aside from just an AoE fear button. Maybe it should just remain an AoE fear button. Adding a short delay to it as I’ve done to the rest of the marks would work just fine, but I feel like that’d be just a bit of a lazy update.

If it makes you feel better about it, it can still only hit 5 people to Static Field’s zerg-stopping prowess. I fully agree that poorly telegraphed skills are bad, especially CC skills, but I don’t think that changing the activation parameters of the skill (save for, say, casting time) would do it any good. I feel like if marks had better tells, people would quickly realize that they are in fact weaker than they appear.

Balefire.7592:

Swagg.9236:

Oh, right, I took out my suggestion for [Reaper’s Mark]. It is a really clunky suggestion in the end. I’m still somewhat at a loss for what it could be aside from just an AoE fear button. Maybe it should just remain an AoE fear button. Adding a short delay to it as I’ve done to the rest of the marks would work just fine, but I feel like that’d be just a bit of a lazy update.

If it makes you feel better about it, it can still only hit 5 people to Static Field’s zerg-stopping prowess. I fully agree that poorly telegraphed skills are bad, especially CC skills, but I don’t think that changing the activation parameters of the skill (save for, say, casting time) would do it any good. I feel like if marks had better tells, people would quickly realize that they are in fact weaker than they appear.

The way I see it, it’s the fact that Marks are GTAOE that is the problem. In the GW1 to GW2 translation, Marks in general were transformed from skills that provided an AOE Debuff centred on the Marked foe into GTAOE spells.

• Design wise, Marks had the effect of forcing Marked opponents in GW1 to separate themselves from the pack unless they burned a Hex removal.
• In GW2, Marks are nothing more than condi-bombs , and their unique nature is lost in the translation.
• I would love to see some Necromancer (and Mesmer) skills centre the Mark automatically over an opponent with a delay, then detonate_ to apply their effect as opposed to their GTAOE nature. Marks would therefore be a way of forcing dodges in the same manner as Ice Spike – except that foes cannot move out of it; they have to dodge when the delay expires. This limited counterplay may lead to outcry.
• Unfortunately, such a design is highly liable to abuse unless no more than 1 Mark can be placed on a foe at a time (new Marks overwrite old Marks)
• This would also make balance more volatile as the Mark has to be sufficiently powerful to require dodging, yet not too much so that being Marked without endurance is guaranteed death.
• On the other hand, centering a tracking AOE over a Foe’s head would bring a new dynamic in teamfights, forcing enemies away from the scrum in the same manner as Marks did in GW1.

MonMalthias.4763:

The way I see it, it’s the fact that Marks are GTAOE that is the problem. In the GW1 to GW2 translation, Marks in general were transformed from skills that provided an AOE Debuff centred on the Marked foe into GTAOE spells.

• Design wise, Marks had the effect of forcing Marked opponents in GW1 to separate themselves from the pack unless they burned a Hex removal.
• In GW2, Marks are nothing more than condi-bombs , and their unique nature is lost in the translation.
• I would love to see some Necromancer (and Mesmer) skills centre the Mark automatically over an opponent with a delay, then detonate_ to apply their effect as opposed to their GTAOE nature. Marks would therefore be a way of forcing dodges in the same manner as Ice Spike – except that foes cannot move out of it; they have to dodge when the delay expires. This limited counterplay may lead to outcry.
• Unfortunately, such a design is highly liable to abuse unless no more than 1 Mark can be placed on a foe at a time (new Marks overwrite old Marks)
• This would also make balance more volatile as the Mark has to be sufficiently powerful to require dodging, yet not too much so that being Marked without endurance is guaranteed death.
• On the other hand, centering a tracking AOE over a Foe’s head would bring a new dynamic in teamfights, forcing enemies away from the scrum in the same manner as Marks did in GW1.

While I’d love to see something like the old Mark of Pain come back into the game as a combat feature, without a reliable way to designate a difference something like a unique debuff and a condition, I fear that it might end up just being overpowered or excessively annoying—as you had already said.

The follow-and-delay sort of set-up might be cool as a means of baiting dodges or breaking up a group of enemies.

The more comments that I read about this topic, the more I wonder if the Necromancer staff marks shouldn’t all be individually different. We could have old Mark of Pain for one, a follow-and-delay bomb for another, a triggered AoE for another and maybe something else. We have plenty of ideas for it.

I have no idea if this has been suggested earlier, but what if we make the marks an on demand explode skill. Doing so allows you to fake out explosions, and catch groups of enemies by surprise. This also negates people being able to detonate marks by just dodging through them.