[PVE][Necromancer] An idea to improve support
My proposal is to improve the minor grandmaster trait Strength of Undeath (which grants you a 5% damage increase while your DS is above 50%) to work similarly to warrior’s trait Empower Allies or guardian’s Strength in Numbers to include nearby allies (up to 5).
This would make necromancer a more wanted profession in dungeons and large scale pve since they lack support and a 5% damage increase to the whole party would make them more viable.
This would promote poor usage of Death Shroud, which is our primary defensive mechanic, and, in the case of power builds, the source of most of our damage. Hence, I can’t say I agree with such a change.
Scrubbiest Necro NA.
This would promote poor usage of Death Shroud, which is our primary defensive mechanic, and, in the case of power builds, the source of most of our damage. Hence, I can’t say I agree with such a change.
How would it promote a poor usage of DS?
If you don’t need to mitigate any damage your life force should be above 50% to get the damage bonus all the time, and if you do need it, an alive necro is still better than a dead necro.
Current ‘meta’ builds (30/10/0/0/30 and 20/25/0/0/25) have no problem keeping LF above 50%, dagger+wh generates it like crazy and with axe+focus you should be hopping out of DS for axe 2 and focus 4 to refill LF.
My proposal is to improve the minor grandmaster trait Strength of Undeath (which grants you a 5% damage increase while your DS is above 50%) to work similarly to warrior’s trait Empower Allies or guardian’s Strength in Numbers to include nearby allies (up to 5).
This would make necromancer a more wanted profession in dungeons and large scale pve since they lack support and a 5% damage increase to the whole party would make them more viable.
This would promote poor usage of Death Shroud, which is our primary defensive mechanic, and, in the case of power builds, the source of most of our damage. Hence, I can’t say I agree with such a change.
Primary DEFENSE? Wot…
If I am reading it right, what you are suggesting is simply having the 5 percent buff go out to the rest of the party, (provided you are traited for it) just as standard.
I like the idea. But a mer 5 percent is not really going to put Necromancer into the “meta”. however it is very much a step in the right direction. If we want to increase the desire to have a Necromancer as a Viable “Record run” class. It needs to be a bit more unique.
None the less it is definitely food for though and if possible be put on the table for a possible addition. Not bad thinking Shawshank.
If we want to increase the desire to have a Necromancer as a Viable “Record run” class. It needs to be a bit more unique.
I think that’s nonsense. Making all classes viable for “record runs” is neither necessary nor possible. For speed runs, I think that this would be a step in the right direction, but probably coupled with some real cleave damage.
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There is no loyalty without betrayal. -Ann Smiley
If we want to increase the desire to have a Necromancer as a Viable “Record run” class. It needs to be a bit more unique.
I think that’s nonsense. Making all classes viable for “record runs” is neither necessary nor possible. For speed runs, I think that this would be a step in the right direction, but probably coupled with some real cleave damage.
You worded it better than I could. that is the general gist of what I was trying to say. At an extreme example.
Making Necromancer as a viable “speed run” class this suggestion is in the right vein of thought. And yes adding some level of “power melee cleave” is much desired as well.
Taking from Shawshanks idea and adding my own.
DpS buff for traited skill granting 5 percent Damage increase for party memebers. (personally I would suggest 10, it would not be to over the top but still potent enough to be taken into account.)
Make the warhorn skills a blast finisher.
Add a reflect (option?) to spectral wall. (I don’t really know if this would be a good thing or bad thing. as I see it used a lot in PvP and WvW, and I don’t know if adding a reflect would destroy its original theme? perhaps as an absorb? like Thieves Smoke Screen?)
Make Dagger cleave. (or give us a new CLEAVING power melee weapon).
shrug
running with it.
The plan is not to make a necro a ‘must-have’ profession in a party, this should be the case for any profession, but to bring it on par with others, since a lot of them have group-wide stats buffs and the only support necro can bring at the moment is defensive (WoP, WoD, WoB, CPC, Transfusion..) which is why the current meta doesnt work well with us.
Regarding cleave damage – necro already has a lot of useful AoE skills (wells, locust swarm, life transfer) so adding a full cleave to dagger would be over the top imo, however adding a cleave which hits an additional 2 targets with 50% damage would work.
Axe doesn’t need cleave, since it is (in DS build) one of the highest ranged dps weapons.
Blast finishers – We desperately need them. Blast finisher on axe 3 and warhorn 5 make sense and allow us to combo with ourself (area blindness and weakness) and add to our offensive support.
What if the content will be tailerd for necromancers too? We have seen this already in TA Aetherblade path for example. Conditions everywhere, boons striping isnt a bad idea either. Sadly, my guardian can do the job with less effort, even if traited for dps.
Cleave damage would be nice ofc, but i could imagine it only on Axe#1 (maybe on #2 too) as a splash damage, other attacks as you mentioned provides enough aoe for bursting down trash, since mostly thats the only place where you need it. And while dagger auto is nice, it isnt really compensated in its damage like thief dagger does. I know, two totally different class and gameplay, but since its pure single target attack its damage should be increased.
Hell yeah! But i would make warhorn4 into a blast finisher instead of #5. Even dagger#5 could be or the trait Enfeeble that does similar effect, but thats only wishful thinking.
And reflects for the love of Grenth! Even warriors had the option for trait for that, every other class has at least one skill that reflects / deflects, except the necro ofc …
More on topic. A simple trait that gives bonus damage shouldnt be enough, see above. Compared to rangers (since they have Frost spirit, which is a really similar skill), they have a good water field with condi removal, a bunch of pets to fill in missing buffs, nice damage, reliable blast finisher, good party wide fury and Spotter.
Necromancers needs a bunch of tweaking to be a “viable” class in pve, but it would be one step to the right direction.
Dalanor I agree with you that more content should be condition/boon related. The problem is mob’s boon renewal. I don’t see the point in removing boons (which an axe+focus necro can do very well) if they are usually reapplied less than 2 seconds later again. I also want Plague Signet to shine somewhere.
Dagger auto hits hard with zerker gear, Signet of spite and/or BiP and while the DPS isnt up there with ele’s LH or warrior’s axe auto it is complemented with wells and locust swarm. Adding cleave would also make it work better with siphoning, another area which needs to be slightly improved to be useful.
I never did see axe as a cleave weapon, maybe scepter..
Now that you mention it, wh4 does have a bit more ‘blast’ to it than wh5.
I also agree we need reflects or at least deflects. While necromancer can go full berserker easier than most other classes due to high HP and DS there are still a lot of high damage attacks that come mostly in a form of projectiles and since the developers have stated a few times they want to shift the play to include DS more, a new skill could be added in place of #6 healing skill:
Spectral shift (60s CD): Partially shifts the user from this world, evading projectiles. Duration: 1s, cast time: instant. This would give necromancer a much needed evade, which would help a lot on bosses like Imbued Shaman or Lupi.
Back to topic. I know that one bchange wouldn’t be enough, offensive support needs to be improved, since we have the worst from all classes but a few small changes divided on multiple trait trees/weapons would work. Some other suggestions:
- before mentioned blast finishers
- Ritual of protection – changed to add 1 stack of might (5s) every pulse
- Death shiver – changed from vulnerability to might
- Reaper’s might – give might to all party members
Thats the problem. And as i said these jobs can be done with other class(es) or even better.
These arent comperable, especially the LH ele. While the ele has some dps downtime its still providing more for the group via might stacking and fury if traited and when it starts hammering the damage sky rockets. Same with FGS. But since ele is squishy as hell it deserves the top dps spot. Thief is a close second, but backstabbing (is it still the best damage source for them?) is too gimmicky for me. But hey, they are squishy too. Did i mentioned that they have one of the if not best trash clearing weaponset with S/P?
Necro damage from dagger auto is nearly the same as thieves, but backstab got double the damage from behind as the last chain of our chain. Not to mention thieves got more and better damage modifiers and heartseeker.
Oh yeah, siphoning is another issue, it could go horribly wrong with cleave.
I bet necro wont ever got good party support, especially with a reflect, but i can imagine something selfish that can used to protect your team if positioned right, similary to rangers axe#5 or iWarden from mesmer focus.
As a side note, both DS cd reduction and spectral cd reduction would affect that, so its a big no no, but as a DS skill it would be accesable for every build.
Blast finishers: 10/10
Ritual of protection: NO. Fire fields already provide better might.
Death shiver: Its a good trait, just in a really bad place.
Reapers might: A dream would come true.
By design necro must be selfish, so it excluding every possible buff to your teammates except heals so the question is, why you want to get a guy in your group, that provides nothing for you? Because it debuffs the enemy! Sadly, vulnerability is all over the place from every class and weakness is unreliable, halved in duration on bosses and you dont want to get hit anyway. And protection is op.
If we want to increase the desire to have a Necromancer as a Viable “Record run” class. It needs to be a bit more unique.
I think that’s nonsense. Making all classes viable for “record runs” is neither necessary nor possible. For speed runs, I think that this would be a step in the right direction, but probably coupled with some real cleave damage.
It is possible. Atm the only class that isnt viable for record runs is the necro. Engi is debatable.
If they give necro projectile defense I would like to see us given the green reflect bubble the toxic krait use.
If they give necro projectile defense I would like to see us given the green reflect bubble the toxic krait use.
But that would be group support and not selfish defense! kitten kitten !
(that bubble is AWESOME, gimme gimme)
Yes, vulnerability would be a perfect condition to be easily accessible by necro’s only since it doesn’t buff others but instead debuffs enemies and increases damage by a percent, but there is too much passive vuln. application.
A good example how it should work is Lich Form ‘Marked for Death’. An 8% damage increase for 10 seconds requires more thought than random 1 stack vuln. on crit, blind, auto-attack…
Necromancer’s damage should not be comparable to thief’s or ele’s, since they have to sacrifice more survivability than us and acieve greater damage.
This does not mean our support should be sub-par too and that is why I think improving a trait to grant allies might/damage increase (hell, even a necro version of Empower Allies with condition damage) is needed.
The necro has good support capabilities, well… he could have them, in form of his CCs, blinds, … but unfortunately this support has nearly no effect in dungeons, because a) the mobs die to fast (trash) or ignore it completely (bosses/champions). And this is due to bad enemy design and has nothing to do with the necro, it’s a fundamental problem in GW2