Guild Wars 2

There have been a lot of thread about the necro already, but I really want to put this one out there because I feel it’s something that needs to be fixed before we can even start to look at traits that are underwhelming.

The necromancer, as a class, as a lot of different ways to survive:
- Some of the highest life leech in the game
- Death Shroud
- Easy access to Cripple, Chill, and Weakness
- Relatively easy access to protection (Spectral Wall/Armor, Adept trait plus wells)

In addition, some of the recent buffs to life force generation have made the necromancer very powerful in 1v1 situations. However, death shroud as a mechanic is hurting the necromancer. The loss of utility skills means we cannot use any of our protection skills while we are in death shroud. Since we are supposed to use it to mitigate burst damage, needing to leave it and incur a cooldown to use those skills is painful. The argument could be made that this is part of the skill of using death shroud, and I agree. However, there are other anti-synergy elements as well that don’t have a question of skill.

1.) Signets:
Why do all signets disappear when we enter deathshroud? I’m sure it’s because death shroud is treated as a transformation technically (and thus “locks” signets, which puts them on cooldown), but that’s not really an acceptable reason. Signets are supposed to give passive skills when they aren’t actively being used. Denying us potentially strong effects while we are in death shroud makes signets much less useful to necromancers, and makes signet builds almost worthless since we wouldn’t get our signet buffs a significant percent of the time.

2.)Life Leech and passive healing:
We have a whole trait line dedicated almost solely to regenerating life through leeching and regen. And yet, none of it works in death shroud. Why? Would it be too powerful to allow us to heal in Death Shroud? Why? People can heal while in transformations, and that’s much the same situation. It actually makes me less useful in groups too, since guardian healing, warrior shout healing and other passive effects actually count me as a target and give me zero healing. This could be fixed either by making healing count towards the necromancer’s health pool while in DS, or by making it regenerate life force.

3.)Finishers:
While most classes can employ their class mechanics to aid them in finishing or resurrecting an ally (Distortion, Aegis, Stealth, Elixer S, Pet abilities), the necromancer has no such options. While we can use wells and blinds to help us finish someone, we cannot “interact” while in death shroud. I suspect this is also a result of DS being treated as a “transformation”, but I’d prefer death shroud in a slightly different incarnation if we could prevent crippling ourselves while in death shroud.

4.)Life Force Gain
It seems odd to say that the act of gaining life force is an anti-synergy, but it’s worth noting you cannot gain life force while in death shroud other than through life transfer. Reaper’s Precision, for example, will not yield life force on crit while in death shroud. People dying nearby also do not yield life force. Why? It punishes us for remaining in death shroud, through removing one of our main sources of sustain. This is very similar to life force gain, but another area where death shroud could see welcome improvement.

An argument could be made that minions intentionally cripple themselves as well due to the fact that we have 12 traits to buff them. Why so many? Reduce the overall number of traits and then increase the strength of base minions. I understand we dont want them to be overpowered base, but it would be nice to have a reason to use a minion other than “well, nothing better to have in this slot” (Blood Fiend and Golem in PvE).

Once death shroud is fixed to not actively work against the class, then I think we’ll start seeing interesting blood and signet builds, and we can finally see what traits really need reworking, and which traits have simply been handicapped by the fact that death shroud makes them not work over half the time.

Not being able to heal at all while in Death Shroud is the big clincher for me. It’s the primary reason why Life Leech is horrible outside of MM and regeneration is the crappiest boon for Necros despite having easy access to permanent regeneration.

Proven.2854:

Not being able to heal at all while in Death Shroud is the big clincher for me. It’s the primary reason why Life Leech is horrible outside of MM and regeneration is the crappiest boon for Necros despite having easy access to permanent regeneration.

Not to mention water fields plus blast finishers are a huge part of WvW, or the number of times a PvE guardian uses Light of Deliverance only to have me eat the 100% heal inside death shroud. Healing in general is a fairly large part of providing support to allies, but it just doesn’t work on necromancers a good chunk of the time

It’s very disappointing considering the focus on on healing in the blood magic line can make sure a very fun “bunker” necro.

you’re forgetting that we can’t revive or stomp during death shroud which is stupid.

Tim.6450:

you’re forgetting that we can’t revive or stomp during death shroud which is stupid.

Darn, I knew I was forgetting something when I hit post. I’ll add that to the post.

You can stomp and you can revive in DS. It’s just about timing and it wasn’t intended.
I think that at least healing effects “healing” your Life Force pool when in DS would be an option

Rym.1469:

You can stomp and you can revive in DS. It’s just about timing and it wasn’t intended.
I think that at least healing effects “healing” your Life Force pool when in DS would be an option

I know you can shroud stomp, but it has to be precisely timed, sometimes doesn’t work, and definitely isn’t intended. The difficulties in doing so (and the fact that you cant deliver the final downing blow to a target, then finish him off without leaving shroud) make it enough of a point to include on the list.

I think that fixing this issue would open up “Foot in the grave” as a trait finally worth having as a grandmaster, because you could basically guarantee a finish every 10 seconds. Things like that are why I mentioned fixing these things should be priority over re-balancing traits. If we re-balance traits before, we might find they are far too powerful after.

Retooling life leeches to work while in DS and boosting life leeches would move us more towards an attrition class than what we currently have, that’s for sure.

The only other problem we have past anti-synergy, is group viability, but thats another thread.

Kahrgan.7401:

Retooling life leeches to work while in DS and boosting life leeches would move us more towards an attrition class than what we currently have, that’s for sure.

The only other problem we have past anti-synergy, is group viability, but thats another thread.

Yeah, I know people focus a lot on the fact that we cant put out a lot of boons which means we dont synergize with other classes nearly as much as ele or guardian builds do. I think some of that is that the corresponding conditions are vastly weaker (I.e., weakness vs protection, vuln vs might).

I’m not really sure other than that how you would improve group viability. What are your thoughts on that?

Life Leech in general is a bad mechanic the way its been implimented. ANet has, unfortunately, backed themselves into a corner regarding this mechanic. The healing side of it, unfortunately, is just not enough to sustain anything. When you’re taking damage in excess of 4k, and you are only siphoning 37 per attack, its not even a drop in a bucket at that point. Its more like a drop in an ocean.

ANet can’t buff siphoning without unbalancing the amount of damage a necromancer can out put. Until they detach the amount healed from the damage it does, and they seem very unwilling to do this, siphoning will forever be in a bad place.

Kravick.4906:

Life Leech in general is a bad mechanic the way its been implimented. ANet has, unfortunately, backed themselves into a corner regarding this mechanic. The healing side of it, unfortunately, is just not enough to sustain anything. When you’re taking damage in excess of 4k, and you are only siphoning 37 per attack, its not even a drop in a bucket at that point. Its more like a drop in an ocean.

ANet can’t buff siphoning without unbalancing the amount of damage a necromancer can out put. Until they detach the amount healed from the damage it does, and they seem very unwilling to do this, siphoning will forever be in a bad place.

They actually already do detach it in some cases. See life siphon on the dagger for example, and Life Transfer in DS. Both deal far more damage than they heal for (I know, in the opposite direction of what you’re arguing, but still an example)

I’d be very happy to have the same thing happen on reverse as well if that would balance out siphon, but I think the point is to get a lot of TINY sources. That plus DS gain adds up to a lot of healing, but since you cant use DS while using siphons right now, it’s very hard to see that. You’d need to make it so you can heal in DS before a siphon build will see any real play I think.

I think Necro’s should be able to heal in Death Shroud from other sources of healing besides their utility.

killahmayne.9518:

I think Necro’s should be able to heal in Death Shroud from other sources of healing besides their utility.

As in, we cant heal ourselves but others can? I’m not sure that would be a great solution, since it’s basically still handicapping a lot of our own builds.

I’ve made multiple threads about this topic. And I have to disagree with you about us having a lot of ways to defend ourselves. In truth, especially compared to the other 7 professions, we don’t… Chill and crippling are all good at controlling people, however necromancers are not the only profession with easy access to this. Weakness is good but I must again point out that other professions can do this as well if not easier then we can. Not all of course, but a good number. We actually don’t have a lot of access to protection. We have relatively little. We also don’t have access to vigor unless you convert bleeding into it with well of power which often means you are putting 2 utility skills on cool down for a short duration vigor. And blind isn’t much of a defense. It is very effective in PvP. However in PvE, it is next to worthless. I’ve been in more then my fair share of situations where blind did absolutely NOTHING.

Necromancer doesn’t have easy access to vigor or stability, no blocking abilities, very few movement abilities, no aegis, no invulnerability, no stealth and much of their methods for defense are conditions. Life stealing cannot be considered a viable option for defense. Death shroud is supposed to replace vigor, stability, blocking, escaping, invulnerability and even self healing all in one package. And I have news for you. It doesn’t make the cut.

Extra health, as proven in GW1 is not a sufficient replacement for real defensive abilities. Imbagon, Prot spirits(ST), 55, perma, all these builds, although sometimes game breaking, proved that self and party protection was far more powerful then an extra 60% health.

I agree that these problems need to be addressed. I don’t agree that we have a lot of ways to defend.

I can argue that while 1v1 necro has good access to chill and criple,in wvw situations its one of the most useless on applying it and systain it.
Mark chill is really short compared to engi mortar chill which is a field that pulses thus stacking the effect or ele.
Caltrops is on the same skill set and both are at 1500 range traited.
Then there are the cooldowns on well of darkness along with the trait and distance.
When you try to drop a well that has 900 range on the enemy zergs one of the two senarios will happen.
If you wait to fire it at the first people of the enemy blob,you get hit by a static field and then the hammer warriors roll over you.
If you prefire it perhaps you wont die because of a static field but you will lose a lot of its effect since the enemy will turn to avoid it and as well when it ticks for 6 seconds and you just wasted 3 seconds of it prefiring it leaves only 3 ticks for those who didnt see it.
No matter how you see it the class falls short of everything except of beeing a ping pong ball.
Least you can put on your 55k ehp gear and tank the auto attackers,but that does mean you get not rewarded for it.

Lily.1935:

-snip-

Necromancer doesn’t have easy access to vigor or stability, no blocking abilities, very few movement abilities, no aegis, no invulnerability, no stealth and much of their methods for defense are conditions. Life stealing cannot be considered a viable option for defense. Death shroud is supposed to replace vigor, stability, blocking, escaping, invulnerability and even self healing all in one package. And I have news for you. It doesn’t make the cut.

Extra health, as proven in GW1 is not a sufficient replacement for real defensive abilities. Imbagon, Prot spirits(ST), 55, perma, all these builds, although sometimes game breaking, proved that self and party protection was far more powerful then an extra 60% health.

I would definitely like to see more options for /active/ defense on the necro, including things such as aegis while in death shroud, extra toughness while in shroud, etc. I like the concept of shroud acting as our defensive mechanism so we are basically much harder to kill while in shroud, but I also understand that might get a bit over the top if we also maintain the amount of HP we have. Most other classes have an “osh” button (Elixer, Distortion or Blurred, renewed, berserker or endure, mist form, etc), and necros could benefit from something similar. I know that Spectral armor + shroud are supposed to serve this role (since the 8% healing / second can essentially make you close to invulnerable if only 4-5 people are hitting you), but I’d like to see it gain stability as well. Especially in WvW, the lack of stability really stops us from being able to “hold” a target like we’re supposed to. How can we lock someone down if they can always control us better than we can control them?

The three things I propose here would be first steps. Until we fix healing in shroud, signets in shroud, and shroud stomping, we have a whole set of builds and traits that are completely unexplored.

As for group synergy, I think we really need to focus on combo finishers. Necro has some of the weakest access to finishers (ranger is probably second, followed by engie), which makes it really hard to play in group. Past that I’d like to see some updates to signets and a couple DS traits to better help the group. There is some strong potential for self-sacrificing support in the class (think of a death grandmaster that absorbs 10% of incoming damage to the necro while in deathshroud), but it’s all missing right now.

grave of hearts.7830:

I can argue that while 1v1 necro has good access to chill and criple,in wvw situations its one of the most useless on applying it and systain it.
Mark chill is really short compared to engi mortar chill which is a field that pulses thus stacking the effect or ele.
Caltrops is on the same skill set and both are at 1500 range traited.
Then there are the cooldowns on well of darkness along with the trait and distance.
When you try to drop a well that has 900 range on the enemy zergs one of the two senarios will happen.
If you wait to fire it at the first people of the enemy blob,you get hit by a static field and then the hammer warriors roll over you.
If you prefire it perhaps you wont die because of a static field but you will lose a lot of its effect since the enemy will turn to avoid it and as well when it ticks for 6 seconds and you just wasted 3 seconds of it prefiring it leaves only 3 ticks for those who didnt see it.
No matter how you see it the class falls short of everything except of beeing a ping pong ball.
Least you can put on your 55k ehp gear and tank the auto attackers,but that does mean you get not rewarded for it.

Well, whether you’re the worst at applying and sustaining depends on how you spec. Traited spinal is very potent at catching enemies because it both chills and strips 3 boons (often catching swiftness). spectral grasp is… ok for catching enemies. The travel time and the fact it’s a projectile makes it a bit worse than magnet.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it falls short at everything. It can pump out massive AoE damage with conditions (epi) or wells (perception). I would however say it falls short of it’s original goal which was an attrition based class. We can only really attrition in 1v1 situations, and that’s mostly due to the LF buff we got. LF as it stands right now is far too… passive. You either have a ton of it when facing 1 target, or not nearly enough when facing multiple. That’s the problem with scaling healing instead of damage reduction. Since healing remains static no matter how many enemies you’re fighting, any class or mechanic that relies on healing to stay alive will not last versus multiple targets well, because their survival mechanic doesn’t scale. This is why guardians are so loved in WvW, good armor, good prot availability and stability, and you can get healing from ele’s, rangers, and the guard itself. Plainly put, their survival mechanic scales.

Necromancer’s doesn’t. In fact, necromancer’s actively doesn’t scale. That might not be a problem, but it’s certainly not pleasant in WvW.

AngelicLoki.1625:

Lily.1935:

-snip-

Necromancer doesn’t have easy access to vigor or stability, no blocking abilities, very few movement abilities, no aegis, no invulnerability, no stealth and much of their methods for defense are conditions. Life stealing cannot be considered a viable option for defense. Death shroud is supposed to replace vigor, stability, blocking, escaping, invulnerability and even self healing all in one package. And I have news for you. It doesn’t make the cut.

Extra health, as proven in GW1 is not a sufficient replacement for real defensive abilities. Imbagon, Prot spirits(ST), 55, perma, all these builds, although sometimes game breaking, proved that self and party protection was far more powerful then an extra 60% health.

I would definitely like to see more options for /active/ defense on the necro, including things such as aegis while in death shroud, extra toughness while in shroud, etc. I like the concept of shroud acting as our defensive mechanism so we are basically much harder to kill while in shroud, but I also understand that might get a bit over the top if we also maintain the amount of HP we have.

The three things I propose here would be first steps. Until we fix healing in shroud, signets in shroud, and shroud stomping, we have a whole set of builds and traits that are completely unexplored.

As you say though, we need more active defense mechanisms once these three things are fixed. Most other classes have an “osh” button (Elixer, Distortion or Blurred, renewed, berserker or endure, mist form, etc), and necros could benefit from something similar. I know that Spectral armor + shroud are supposed to serve this role (since the 8% healing / second can essentially make you close to invulnerable if only 4-5 people are hitting you), but I’d like to see it gain stability as well. Especially in WvW, the lack of stability really stops us from being able to “hold” a target like we’re supposed to. How can we lock someone down if they can always control us better than we can control them?

That being said, again, I’d really like to see these three things fixed first. The dev’s prefer gradual change and it’s a good way of moving imo.

I personally think that giving us access to our utility, allowing us to stomp, heal and revive while in death shroud would go a very long way to our defenses. My personal opinion on that matter is to do this first. Give us this first before we decide to grant more defensive abilities. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. What I meant when I said Death shroud doesn’t cut it was that in its current form it doesn’t. I can only speculate about how it might with these few changes.

Lily.1935:

AngelicLoki.1625:

Lily.1935:

-snip-

Necromancer doesn’t have easy access to vigor or stability, no blocking abilities, very few movement abilities, no aegis, no invulnerability, no stealth and much of their methods for defense are conditions. Life stealing cannot be considered a viable option for defense. Death shroud is supposed to replace vigor, stability, blocking, escaping, invulnerability and even self healing all in one package. And I have news for you. It doesn’t make the cut.

Extra health, as proven in GW1 is not a sufficient replacement for real defensive abilities. Imbagon, Prot spirits(ST), 55, perma, all these builds, although sometimes game breaking, proved that self and party protection was far more powerful then an extra 60% health.

I would definitely like to see more options for /active/ defense on the necro, including things such as aegis while in death shroud, extra toughness while in shroud, etc. I like the concept of shroud acting as our defensive mechanism so we are basically much harder to kill while in shroud, but I also understand that might get a bit over the top if we also maintain the amount of HP we have.

The three things I propose here would be first steps. Until we fix healing in shroud, signets in shroud, and shroud stomping, we have a whole set of builds and traits that are completely unexplored.

As you say though, we need more active defense mechanisms once these three things are fixed. Most other classes have an “osh” button (Elixer, Distortion or Blurred, renewed, berserker or endure, mist form, etc), and necros could benefit from something similar. I know that Spectral armor + shroud are supposed to serve this role (since the 8% healing / second can essentially make you close to invulnerable if only 4-5 people are hitting you), but I’d like to see it gain stability as well. Especially in WvW, the lack of stability really stops us from being able to “hold” a target like we’re supposed to. How can we lock someone down if they can always control us better than we can control them?

That being said, again, I’d really like to see these three things fixed first. The dev’s prefer gradual change and it’s a good way of moving imo.

I personally think that giving us access to our utility, allowing us to stomp, heal and revive while in death shroud would go a very long way to our defenses. My personal opinion on that matter is to do this first. Give us this first before we decide to grant more defensive abilities. But perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. What I meant when I said Death shroud doesn’t cut it was that in its current form it doesn’t. I can only speculate about how it might with these few changes.

Agreed. A lot of the necro threads are asking for sweeping changes that would fundamentally alter the way a necro survives or plays. I’m not interested in doing that, I really like the idea of a slow attrition class whose support role in a group is to reduce your enemy instead of build up your party. I would like to see some tweaks to the necro’s healing and sustain in order to make that happen though.

After the above changes (and I dont think I’ve heard anyone disagree with them yet, which speaks volumes), then I’d like to look at some of the traits and skills we have to help us in situations where there are a larger number of enemies on the field. One vs One we’re good, but in smaller groups where we have two or three enemies attacking us.

Updated the main post after feedback from guildies.

These are my thoughts about ‘’How it was developed’’
First and most important is Death Shroud… which completely spits in your face as ‘’Class Mechanism’’,
It is just illusion to all kitten behind it…

While it gives you extra healthpool and devastating abilities, you sacrifice ALL of Necro Specific abilities – Mainly Siphoning, and then signets and other

Necromancer is strong, I dont disagree, but DS needs a change,
What I expect to see,
Necromancer should retain Siphoning/Signet Passives while in Death Shroud
and that is all what I expect from Anet…

Since cooldowns on Necromancer ’’other’’ defensive boons(Protection/Stability) are way too long, and sustaining damage with healing is all what Necro has.

AivenPrimus.9184:

These are my thoughts about ‘’How it was developed’’
First and most important is Death Shroud… which completely spits in your face as ‘’Class Mechanism’’,
It is just illusion to all kitten behind it…

While it gives you extra healthpool and devastating abilities, you sacrifice ALL of Necro Specific abilities – Mainly Siphoning, and then signets and other

Necromancer is strong, I dont disagree, but DS needs a change,
What I expect to see,
Necromancer should retain Siphoning/Signet Passives while in Death Shroud
and that is all what I expect from Anet…

Since cooldowns on Necromancer ’’other’’ defensive boons(Protection/Stability) are way too long, and sustaining damage with healing is all what Necro has.

Well, defensive cooldowns aren’t horrible. As I mentioned in the first post, we have some of the easiest access to protection. Ele and Guardian have slightly better, but they are boon machines. Spectral wall is an amazing defensive skill, as is spectral armor.

Death Shroud isn’t a horrible mechanic, It’s basically a third weapon set we always carry that has limited availability. The limited availability allows the devs to tie traits and effects to it to enhance it. The problem is that so much of our class synergy outside of DS is lost when we enter it, which causes is to actually because less survivable while it’s up. I’d really like to see more of our survivability tied to “while in death shroud” or “on entering death shroud” traits to encourage the use of it as a protective skill, but we really need to fix these synergies first.