Its something that bothers me since they announced that necros get a defense buff.
Whats the problem with it you might ask? Well its the scaling of the necro class mechanic. Death shroud does not scale well with the number of enemies you face. Necros a very good 1v1 fighters but struggle against multible opponents. The reason for this is that the extra life bar is meaningless if 3 people hit you at the same time. Blocks or evades for example scale well because it doesnt matter how many people try to hit you while you activated the defensive skill.
So if they stay true to the class which means: No escapes and no real damage avoidance; than I cant see a way to balance the necro. Every buff that does not fundamentaly change the class and brings it up to par with the other classes in team fights would automaticaly make it completly OP in any 1v1 scenario.
Hopefully they don’t “increase defense” by just buffing offense up the wazoo (a la dhuumfire).
One way to buff defense in group-fights is to increase mobility, although that is not something they want to do.
Making stab more accessible (or attractive, by making foot in the grave more desirable) is another option.
Increasing LF generation skills to be more aoe is another way. You get the same healing in a 1v1, but more when another person joins in. Similarly, they could buff “Parasitic Contagion” which already scales really well with more enemies.
My guess it they will buffing bloodmagic, which needs the buff the most. It is the trait line which is supposed to be our sustain line but is rather useless since the numbers are to weak. And they will probably also change some defensive utility skills that are underperformming like well of darkness. So it wouldnt count on a buff to DS or LF generation.
LF itself doesn’t scale into teamfights, but any of our defensive mechanics which give us more benefits per player hit does. For example, Locust Swarm gives LF per hit, the more people you hit, the more it gives you, so in a way it scales into teamfights better than dagger auto, which will never give you more regardless of how many people are around. Same with healing via siphons, which currently scale into teamfights as well (exception being MM which really doesn’t get much scaling), and AoE conditions, which indirectly affect your defenses and are AoE.
So to answer your question, they should buff our defenses in these situations by buffing our AoE lifesteal, AoE defensive conditions, and AoE life force generation, and even potentially things like protection, all of which can scale into fights. I imagine they will do this by buffing our various sources of these things which currently underperform, which is essentially what they’ve been doing for everyone.
If you want DS to scale with the number of opponents just give it a passive life regen effect that gets stronger the more opponents (max 5) are close by.
Salix Babylonica (Necro), Tharnath (Guardian), N Faculty (Mesmer),
Occam Pi (Ele), Acaena Elongata (Warrior), Finja Salversdotir (Ranger),
Bytestream (Engineer), Vim Whitespace (Thief)
If you want DS to scale with the number of opponents just give it a passive life regen effect that gets stronger the more opponents (max 5) are close by.
considering that Necro’s are supposed to be aggressive and hit enemies to get LF and keep going, i think thats a bad idea.
What can be done:
-lifesteal already scales with the number of opponents, cause it got no internal cooldown. if lifesteal wasnt kitten, that could already be a big help
-Spectral armor/walk were some of the few necro skills that scaled well with enemies until anet ruined that with the internal cooldown. this cooldown should be changed so that each attacker has its own internal cooldown.
-Death shroud: maybe implement a cap on how much life force a necro can lose each second while in death shroud. A trait a la “While in death shroud you can only lose 10% maximum life force per second” for example
and of course let us finally receive healing while in death shroud…
“Revenant is actual proof that devs read the necromancer forum” – Pelopidas.2140
Gunnar’s Hold
Providing AOE life force generation, more life force generation in condition focused weapons baseline, and aoe siphons will greatly increase the necromancer sustain in group fights. However, they will also need stronger siphons / siphons working in DS to sustain in a 1v1 fight with some stuns here and there… why do I talk about 1v1? because we are necromancers, and for us, a 1 v 1 becoming a 1 v 2 or 1v3 is but unusual…to say the least.
Sadly to burst your bubble but defense scaling with the amount of enemies will never be usefull due tot the existance of mesmer, rangers, turrets, elementals and minions and will help not much with PvE at all. What necro’s need is defense scaling with damage output.
So to answer your question, they should buff our defenses in these situations by buffing our AoE lifesteal, AoE defensive conditions, and AoE life force generation, and even potentially things like protection, all of which can scale into fights. I imagine they will do this by buffing our various sources of these things which currently underperform, which is essentially what they’ve been doing for everyone.
They want us to be defensive with conditions and support through them, but weakness and blind and cripple don’t work on dungeon bosses so they’ll never really be up to par with protection and stability and regen which work EVERYWHERE.
Moreover, the amount of boon removal abilities is very, very tiny compared to the amount of condition cleansing ones.
While guardians are farting boons for their team constantly, only a 40 sec cd necro well or a mesmer null field can sort of scratch that boon train. Nothing else. Ranger can’t group rip boons, neither can’t thief, neither can warrior or engineer.
Boons>>>>>>>>Conditions in defensive terms. Hell, even in offensive terms boons are great because stability is by far the greatest damage increase in group PvP on top of protection since it affords very high uptime.
Hopefully they don’t “increase defense” by just buffing offense up the wazoo (a la dhuumfire).
One way to buff defense in group-fights is to increase mobility, although that is not something they want to do.
Making stab more accessible (or attractive, by making foot in the grave more desirable) is another option.
Increasing LF generation skills to be more aoe is another way. You get the same healing in a 1v1, but more when another person joins in. Similarly, they could buff “Parasitic Contagion” which already scales really well with more enemies.
they will not give us mobility. because giving it to the necro is against philosophy(7/8 classes have a free leap(teleport, shadowstep, gap closer leap, etc) making even guardians more mobile than us. all I can do in group fights is hope i don’t get focused.
As quick as the Valkyries ride,
As true as Odin’s spear flies,
There is nowhere to hide.
I dunno. I saw very many necros in the recent ToL. I saw no reason they needed any defensive buffs at all.
And all those builds were offensive builds, since there is no point going into underperforming traitlines like bloodmagic. My guess it that bloodmagic (and maybe unholy sancturary) mainly gets the survivablity buffs. For the utility skills it is probably the defensive wells and maybe some buffs to underperforming healing skills like bloodfiend and Signet of Vampirism.
I see lowering cooldowns of things like reaper’s protection, spectral skills, and signets. Additionaly, I’d love if they added aegis, stability, or vigor to spectral skills, but I’m not holding my breath for that..
Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..
I dunno. I saw very many necros in the recent ToL. I saw no reason they needed any defensive buffs at all.
I’m glad many necros were seen. They did die pretty easily if they were focused in team fights though, which is why overall compositions and deciding where the necro goes was critical to their success. Its pretty anti-meta to use them since they counter much of the celestial boon spam of the current meta fairly well.
Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..
I’m certain for Anet, giving necromancer a dagger that cleave (sadly 2 foes instead of 3) is their reason to say that they buff necro defense. With this our siphon will double against 2 foe isn’t it an awesome buff? Dagger LF generation will also double on auto attack.
I think that’s what lead them to say that they will buff Necro defense.
Will this be enough? absolutely not. Will this be a balanced change? I think so.
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
I’m certain for Anet, giving necromancer a dagger that cleave (sadly 2 foes instead of 3) is their reason to say that they buff necro defense. With this our siphon will double against 2 foe isn’t it an awesome buff? Dagger LF generation will also double on auto attack.
I think that’s what lead them to say that they will buff Necro defense.
Will this be enough? absolutely not. Will this be a balanced change? I think so.
There is no guarantee it would double life force generation.
What difference does that make. I have seen post after post of folks claiming they need this buff or that buff, because they were not predominant in the last tournament. The build is completely irrelevant. In this tourny, they were fairly prevalent.
I dunno. I saw very many necros in the recent ToL. I saw no reason they needed any defensive buffs at all.
I’m glad many necros were seen. They did die pretty easily if they were focused in team fights though, which is why overall compositions and deciding where the necro goes was critical to their success. Its pretty anti-meta to use them since they counter much of the celestial boon spam of the current meta fairly well.
You do realize that every profession dies pretty easily when focused be the other team, so I have no idea where your trying to take that part.
Its Anti meta? over 40 of the top 64 teams in both NA and EU had them on their team. That IS what defines them as being part of the meta.
No profession dies as easily to focus fire as necros simply because necros lack ways to avoid the hits.
Between a zerker ele and a soldier’s necro, it’s actually the ele that can survive focus fire better (still not well) because they have invulnerability options. Of course, anyone playing zerker ele and getting focused will have to escape or have a bad day, but they do, at least, have the possibility of doing it. Zerker eles are also not designed to be durable and in the fight for the long haul, unlike the Necromancer profession.
Although I agree, that necros do not have as much avoidance, they do have, protection, possibly the most powerful boon in the game, through converting invulnerability, ritual of protection, spectral armor, and spectral wall……………….I do feel they need a trait to offer at least some vigor though.
3s every 32s for well of blood, 3s every 28s for well of suffering, 3s every 32s for well of corruption, 3s every 40s for well of power.
That is a 40% up time if you use wells consecutively or in conjunction. If you space them out and ignore the idea of using them for protection, you will still have a 35%-37% up time on protection. I do not consider that low at all. As well it can be increased a fair bit with various rune sets.
What difference does that make. I have seen post after post of folks claiming they need this buff or that buff, because they were not predominant in the last tournament. The build is completely irrelevant. In this tourny, they were fairly prevalent.
I dunno. I saw very many necros in the recent ToL. I saw no reason they needed any defensive buffs at all.
I’m glad many necros were seen. They did die pretty easily if they were focused in team fights though, which is why overall compositions and deciding where the necro goes was critical to their success. Its pretty anti-meta to use them since they counter much of the celestial boon spam of the current meta fairly well.
You do realize that every profession dies pretty easily when focused be the other team, so I have no idea where your trying to take that part.
Its Anti meta? over 40 of the top 64 teams in both NA and EU had them on their team. That IS what defines them as being part of the meta.
I meant anti meta in that they counter the celestial might stacking meta fairly well, not in terms of actual usage. I wish power necros were used a bit more, but I understand that all of the boon removal, CC, and AoE condition pressure, as well as 1v1 prowess is way better on condition builds.
And yeaj, flesh wurm, and swalk are the only real escapes, and they can fail if used improperly.
Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..
35% uptime is very low when you have to use every single utility and heal for it. Protection also isn’t remotely unique to Necromancers, even in higher uptimes, rangers for example get 2s per dodge
What difference does that make. I have seen post after post of folks claiming they need this buff or that buff, because they were not predominant in the last tournament. The build is completely irrelevant. In this tourny, they were fairly prevalent.
No, it seems you misunderstand me. You asked you why necros needed defensive buffs in the first place and my answer was because the defensive side of necros is bad. That remark with the offensive builds was only to point that out.
You could say it is the same like spirit weapons of guardians, because they are bad Anet wants to buff them. Essentially making underperforming things better. And you wouldnt say because guardians have a good representation in ToL, Spirit weapons dont need a buff, would you?
remove aweful ICDs from signet of vampirism,
lower life force lost when hit in death shroud,
give things like spectral armour extra effects,
increase the healing of life steals,
What difference does that make. I have seen post after post of folks claiming they need this buff or that buff, because they were not predominant in the last tournament. The build is completely irrelevant. In this tourny, they were fairly prevalent.
No, it seems you misunderstand me. You asked you why necros needed defensive buffs in the first place and my answer was because the defensive side of necros is bad. That remark with the offensive builds was only to point that out.
You could say it is the same like spirit weapons of guardians, because they are bad Anet wants to buff them. Essentially making underperforming things better. And you wouldnt say because guardians have a good representation in ToL, Spirit weapons dont need a buff, would you?
That’s not a very logical train of thought. How do you compare buffing AI summon pets, for a lack of a better term, to buffing the over all defense of an entire profession? Boon stripping and as high an uptime as any profession on protection, combined with the ability to clear conditions better then any profession in the game, plus a second health pull sums up to be extremely defensive for me when I am a commander in WvW on my necromancer.
What difference does that make. I have seen post after post of folks claiming they need this buff or that buff, because they were not predominant in the last tournament. The build is completely irrelevant. In this tourny, they were fairly prevalent.
No, it seems you misunderstand me. You asked you why necros needed defensive buffs in the first place and my answer was because the defensive side of necros is bad. That remark with the offensive builds was only to point that out.
You could say it is the same like spirit weapons of guardians, because they are bad Anet wants to buff them. Essentially making underperforming things better. And you wouldnt say because guardians have a good representation in ToL, Spirit weapons dont need a buff, would you?
That’s not a very logical train of thought. How do you compare buffing AI summon pets, for a lack of a better term, to buffing the over all defense of an entire profession? Boon stripping and as high an uptime as any profession on protection, combined with the ability to clear conditions better then any profession in the game, plus a second health pull sums up to be extremely defensive for me when I am a commander in WvW on my necromancer.
I am talking about underused traitlines like bloodmagic and underused skills. So why can i not compare underused skills and traits with other underused skills and traits of other professions?
My Argument was simply that both spirit weapons and bloodmagic are currently not good, so it makes sense to buff them.
And using WvW zergs may also not a good exemple for necromancer survivability because of the high amounts of deaths necromancer have always full Lifeforce. In spvp or in places where not many deaths happen that is not the case. But thats beside my point. My point was always about bloodmagic.
Although I agree, that necros do not have as much avoidance, they do have, protection, possibly the most powerful boon in the game, through converting invulnerability, ritual of protection, spectral armor, and spectral wall……………….I do feel they need a trait to offer at least some vigor though.
Protection is useless if you dont have the sustain to bring your hp back up. Which is pretty why necros are so bad at defence at the moment. We can take a lot of damage before going down but we have no way to bring it back up because we cant avoid, escape or heal enough when engaged. We either need far superior sustain (better than warriors) or more damage avoidance. Or both.
That said, unless they let siphons function in death shroud, Blood Magic will always be bad and avoided.
While i love that would happen, i doubt Anet will ever do this. The very thought of switching between two “life” bars and always refilling the other is quite scary for them.
Unholy sanctuary is/will probably the only thing that will allow health regeneration in Ds for a long time.
That said, unless they let siphons function in death shroud, Blood Magic will always be bad and avoided.
While i love that would happen, i doubt Anet will ever do this. The very thought of switching between two “life” bars and always refilling the other is quite scary for them.
Unholy sanctuary is/will probably the only thing that will allow health regeneration in Ds for a long time.
Which is funny, because that’s really the only way it works out for an attrition mechanic.
Or they make siphons strong enough that actually using death shroud becomes optional. Pretty sure that’s far less desirable.
Or they make siphons strong enough that actually using death shroud becomes optional. Pretty sure that’s far less desirable.
I think that is far more likely and i dont think Ds will ever be optional. Its skill set is too good for that and it would still be good to soften burst.
That’s not a very logical train of thought. How do you compare buffing AI summon pets, for a lack of a better term, to buffing the over all defense of an entire profession? Boon stripping and as high an uptime as any profession on protection, combined with the ability to clear conditions better then any profession in the game, plus a second health pull sums up to be extremely defensive for me when I am a commander in WvW on my necromancer.
I can do those things on my necro, but they are all long cooldowns, and take up all my utility skills.
So if I do that, I can’t do the boon corruption or have any of our debatably effective escapes. Which are also on longer-ish than they deserve cooldowns.
While i love that would happen, i doubt Anet will ever do this. The very thought of switching between two “life” bars and always refilling the other is quite scary for them.
Unholy sanctuary is/will probably the only thing that will allow health regeneration in Ds for a long time.
i dont really see a problem there. if you refill your current life bar or a second one, whats the difference? it always sounds like as soon as you can refill the other one, something magical happens that makes the necromancer invincible.
so how is the concept of ‘switching between two life bars and refilling the other’ inherently scary/broken?
Unholy Sanctuary pretty much showed that it isnt. It’s just a numbers issue.
And blocking while youre being healed/eating damage while your block comes off cooldown isnt that different, in my opinion.
“Revenant is actual proof that devs read the necromancer forum” – Pelopidas.2140
Gunnar’s Hold
Or they make siphons strong enough that actually using death shroud becomes optional. Pretty sure that’s far less desirable.
I think that is far more likely and i dont think Ds will ever be optional. Its skill set is too good for that and it would still be good to soften burst.
Right, but its defensive benefits would essentially be reduced to “anti-burst” rather than sustain. I’d rather see the mechanics work together than changing the effective role of death shroud.
Yeah Coglin, while I respect your apparent knowlege, right now necromancers in pv don’t really form the sustain role suggested by attrition, since celestial might stacking builds on other classes do that so much better. And like others said,you can’t use WvW to judge a professions survivability in an spvp scenario, since if you’re built tanky enough in an organized group in WvW, you may rarely or ever die as long as you don’t get melee trained, because your life force goes up so easily. I run wells with mostly zerker, and thanks to a guardian stab, I rarely die unless I do something completely stupid in fights.
Right now necromancers are taken as roaming dps with middling speed but high damage output from burst condition output, which lets them win most 1v1s given life force, or for lich form for 2 shotting people in team fights with air/fire/chill of death procs, as well as general AoE pressure and soft CC. Not to disrespect minion builds, but they don’t have the sustain needed to hold points at high levels in part because necromancers are so vulnerable to focus fire, even if they take the most amount of weird, long cooldown stunbreaks!
Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..
So I play almost all the classes. I am working on my 4th champ title and it is on necromancer. I have just started this process tho so I am kinda new with her.
My question is why can’t we just keep our utilities while in death shroud? Then we could use some of our defensive utilities like flesh worm or spectral armor. Armor would give us protection for less lf drain and each hit would add lf as well. I am not suggesting this is the only buff we need. But I don’t see a downside to having access to our utilities while in ds. And having “mained” other classes against necros I wouldn’t consider this OP either. But as I said, I just started the Prof having about 100 games and 55ish wins. I have been playing both power and Condi to try to find what I like best. So far its 62006 wells and lich.
So I play almost all the classes. I am working on my 4th champ title and it is on necromancer. I have just started this process tho so I am kinda new with her.
My question is why can’t we just keep our utilities while in death shroud? Then we could use some of our defensive utilities like flesh worm or spectral armor. Armor would give us protection for less lf drain and each hit would add lf as well. I am not suggesting this is the only buff we need. But I don’t see a downside to having access to our utilities while in ds. And having “mained” other classes against necros I wouldn’t consider this OP either. But as I said, I just started the Prof having about 100 games and 55ish wins. I have been playing both power and Condi to try to find what I like best. So far its 62006 wells and lich.
I think it would be pretty strong if we could do that, especially with spectral skills which can help a lot if you’re focused before going into DS, but it still isn’t enough really.
I’d at least like to see cooldowns on utilities and heals while in DS.
Necromancer Main
Taking a break from GW2 to play various
Nintendo games..
Anet honestly needs to take a bit of a risk. I understand they seem a bit … leery of Lifestealer builds, but -at this rate- if Necros are to effectively be barred from leaps, reflects, and other “taken-for-granted” means of damage mitigation and/or escape, then it makes sense to work within the known “framework” of the profession’s powers.
Besides Blood Magic needing some love in general, an idea I had some months ago was:
Basically allowing the ability for D. Shroud to either absorb or repel certain CC effects or Condition attacks. It would help DS get a bit more oomph, and would -IMHO- fit the profession’s overall abilities of manipulating Conditions.
This could be done through Trait expenditure, so that there’s a sacrifice for the
power gained.
I don’t claim to be a Necro expert, mind you (spend too much time either Purple or stealin stuff), but I won’t say Necros couldn’t do with some adjustments to their defenses.
Malegryne (Sylvari Mesmer), Lannka (Asura Thief) – Ferguson’s Crossing: [PRD/BRB/OMFG]
Other 80s: Any but Warrior
I dunno. I saw very many necros in the recent ToL. I saw no reason they needed any defensive buffs at all.
I’m glad many necros were seen. They did die pretty easily if they were focused in team fights though, which is why overall compositions and deciding where the necro goes was critical to their success. Its pretty anti-meta to use them since they counter much of the celestial boon spam of the current meta fairly well.
the necro on the winning(or losing team, can’t recall) team would be very, very easy to kill for my setup on my necromancer. i don’t know how he survived so long in fights. i didn’t see any stunbreaks or condi cleanses. those are the necros i just love to run into.
As quick as the Valkyries ride,
As true as Odin’s spear flies,
There is nowhere to hide.
remove aweful ICDs from signet of vampirism,
lower life force lost when hit in death shroud,
give things like spectral armour extra effects,
increase the healing of life steals,
in short there are plenty of ways they can do it
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Seriously if any of these were implemented I would be incredibly happy. All I am expecting at this point though is a bit higher life force generation and a few tool tip rewrites. As it sits I’m thinking I may start leveling a mesmer next week.
Although I agree, that necros do not have as much avoidance, they do have, protection, possibly the most powerful boon in the game, through converting invulnerability, ritual of protection, spectral armor, and spectral wall……………….I do feel they need a trait to offer at least some vigor though.
Protection is useless if you dont have the sustain to bring your hp back up. Which is pretty why necros are so bad at defence at the moment. We can take a lot of damage before going down but we have no way to bring it back up because we cant avoid, escape or heal enough when engaged. We either need far superior sustain (better than warriors) or more damage avoidance. Or both.
I suggested just that in the last line of my post that you quoted.
I can do those things on my necro, but they are all long cooldowns, and take up all my utility skills.
So if I do that, I can’t do the boon corruption or have any of our debatably effective escapes. Which are also on longer-ish than they deserve cooldowns.
I do not feel the wells are on a long cool down but spectral armor and spectral walk do seem like overly long cool downs though.
Sig of Locust changed to instant cast + stunbreaker + 25sec CD.
Stability on Necrotic Traversal and Spectral Walk.
Well of Blood buffs.
Bloodbag buffs.
The real reason necros have no survivability is because of mobility, and although anet have said plenty of times that they wont buff it, I’m going to suggest some mobility changes anyways. Its the easiest and most sure-fire way of buffing necros in my opinion without making them OP with tons of stability and protection.
Now teleport the necro to the target. Doesnt effect condimancers unless they decide to go scepter / focus, and even then they sacrifice quite a bit. I believe that this could be a beneficial thing for necros because using these skills could be a double edged sword.
Team Deathmatch for PvP – Raise the AoE cap for WvW – More unique events for PvE
), but I won’t say Necros couldn’t do with some adjustments to their defenses.