Guild Wars 2

I’ve decided to write my suggestion in the form of patch notes. I hope you enjoy!

Today’s patch is aimed at shoring up Power-based Necromancer’s weaknesses by giving them some tools they are currently lacking in hopes that by increasing their their viability, we can encourage build diversity.

Axe
Rending Claws and Ghastly Claws: Range increased to 900.
Unholy Feast: Moved to a different weapon and replaced with Rend Body.
Rend Body: 1 second cast. 15 second cooldown. 900 range. Inflicts the target with Blind (3sec), Crippled (6sec), Vulnerability (5 stacks, 10 sec), and Weakness (10 sec).

Greatsword
The Necromancer can now wield Greatswords! The Greatsword has strong elements of area control.
Dark Slash: Slash enemies in front of you. > Dark Swing: Slash enemies in front of you again. > Dark Sweep: Slash enemies in front of you damaging and crippling them (1sec).
Reap: 1/2 second cast. 6 second cooldown. 300 range. Sweep your Greatsword in a circle, dealing damage to nearby enemies and gaining Life Force for each enemy struck.
Unholy Feast: Swapped to the Greatsword from the Axe.
Dark Aura: 1/4 second cast. 25 second cooldown. Grant yourself an aura of darkness (5sec). Enemies who strike you become blinded for 3 seconds.
Chilling Howl: 1 second cast. 40 second cooldown. 600 range. Fear (1sec) and chill (3sec) nearby enemies.

Death Shroud
Changed the UI to be similar to other form-changing skills, allowing you to see more information, including health, conditions/boons, and skills’ cooldowns, etc.
Additionally, we’ve decided to add a second “auto-attack” (a spammable skill with no cooldown).
Crimson Blast: 1 second cast. 900 range. Deals damage and bleeds the target, increasing bleeds applied with the more Life Force you have.
50% or more Life Force: 3 stacks of bleeding (3sec).
49% or less Life Force: 2 stacks of bleeding (3sec).

By giving Power-based Necromancers a true ranged option in the Axe and a weapon in which they can deal area damage with in the Greatsword, the two greatest short-comings of a Power-based Necromancer are remedied, making it a fun and viable build as an alternative to running Condition or Condition/Power hybrid based builds.
The addition of the second auto-attack in Death Shroud will allow Condition-based builds to have a more interesting decision-making process when it comes to Death Shroud. Should I save my Life Force as a second health bar? Or should I try to get a few extra bleeds in since I’m sitting on a full bar?

+1, except the constant cripple from the auto attack on greatsword would probably be an issue in PvP, maybe change it to Vuln or Bleed?

I don’t care about the first two, since I don’t worry about power, but my Necro is based around Death Shroud so the third one is of interest to me.

The first thing of interest to me is, Death Shroud doesn’t work that way, at all. The reason you lose all information from your normal UI is because while in Death Shroud none of it matters. Your HP is entirely protected for the duration of the shroud, so no need to see it. I’m not certain, but I believe you are also immune to conditions in that state.

While I am ok with having a bleed, since I’m a bleed-centric Necro, and even ok with having it be based on your life force, if wouldn’t be a concideration. Using powers in Death Shroud doesn’t drain lifeforce. Being in Death Shroud drains life force, and getting hit my mobs drains it. Therefore, if you’re a condition necro you would automatically use the bleed power over the DD regardless of your current life force level.

All in all, I think you can work on your Axes and Greatsword, but leave my Death Shroud alone. It works just fine the way it is.

why would u want a chill and a fear on the same skill? Thats like using 3 then 5 right after on staff….

@Talgor, yes, understandable. I thought at 1sec cripple it’d be okay, but I guess with traits, etc. it could become a 2 second cripple, which might cause problems.

@Kal, actually conditions DO effect you when you’re in Death Shroud. In fact they deal quite a bit of damage to your Life Force due to the way the game rounds numbers. Having that information would be invaluable in PvP. Dropping out of Death Shroud to see you timed it wrong and your Healing spell isn’t ready… not fun.
I understand a conditionmancer would never use Life Blast over Crimson Blast. The point is that currently, a power-based Necro can enter Death Shroud and use Life Blast attacks to deal quite a bit of damage, so long as they have more than 50% Life Force. A condition Necromancer never wants to be in DS because it’s a DPS loss, which is why generally DS is used only for its Fear and as a second life bar for Condition Necromancers. With this change, Condition mancers might want to actually stay in DS and use their bleed auto-attack, since it would deal more damage than their Scepter auto-attack so long as your Life Force is greater than 50%.

@SwickHobo, well if you’re using a melee weapon, you don’t really want your enemies getting far away from you so the Chill is nice, whereas the Fear acts as an interrupt as well as defensive maneuver. The fear gives you a second of grace time to deal damage to a group of mobs while they’re not attacking. Also, I really wanted the Necro Greatsword to feel like it was about controling the area. That’s why I didn’t give it any gap closers or pulls, like the other professions have on their Greatsword.
Edit – but the point of my post is more that Power Necros needs AoE and ranged options. The skills were just me having fun designing.

the reason why i don’t use the axe is because i pretty much hate unholy feast, it attracts way to many enemies i don’t want attacking.
i know a skill i have thought of for when the great sword is seen as a good thing for the necro, wanted it from the start.

undead poison: stab the sword directly in the ground and channel necrotic magic trough the blade, anyone close to you is poisoned and suffers damage every second for a time.

i leave the numbers to Anet, i can make skills but not balance them :P