Herro,
Did you ever ask yourself why the Necromancer is the pretty much least played profession? There is a reason, not because he is less viable, not because he is less fun, but because he feels inconsistent and unfinished.
There is 3 basic build-families that the Necros of Tyria use, the Zerk DPS Build, the MM Build, and the Condition Build.
We are going to take a look at the offhand weapons in these.
The DPS builds use a Warhorn or a Focus, to help chase people, get more mobility and increase vulnerability stacking.
The MM build uses a Focus or a Dagger, either to help our minions deal more damage and CC the target, or to control conditions easier and apply weakness and blind.
Now the Condition Build uses… a dagger. And that’s about it normally, the dagger provides some bleeding, weakness and a blind + condi transfer.
There has been signs of Necro buffs soon, or, if you wish, further building and completing the class, now the necro was meant to use conditions, be it damaging conditions, or CC ones, yet still there is no Burning available for us!
On top of that, getting Vigor, which is an underrated yet extremely important boon is way too hard for us.
Condition builds need Vigor. You may ask why and I am going to tell you. Wafter applying bleeds, poison and hopefully soon burning as well, we need time for those to deal damage, while we wait and reapply conditions we are vulnerable, extra dodging will surely help the necromancer and he will also feel more mobile and more fun.
Dodging 2 times and proceeding to wait an eternity to dodge again is not fun, Vigor is.
To combine our 2 issues and create a solution i present to you.. the torch!
Ever seen people using that weapon? Probably. Torch naturally applies burning, which is something we need and it may help us get vigor as well!
Now I have seen the suggestion being submitted a couple of months ago but now, I feel like this change has to be made, I even thought about the skills and how to give us the weapon without making the Necro insanely overpowered.
The offhand offers 2 skills, lets split our 2 issues into these.
The 4th skill, an offensive move, the necromancer points the torch towards the enemy making him burn (with fancy green flames) for a couple of seconds (I am not able to tell you how many exactly, it’s a matter of balance and this lies beyond my competence) and after the burning fades away, damage the enemy based on how many boons he currently has on himself. Easy? Yep, and effective, solving our problem of lacking the highest base damage condition in the game.
Now the 5th skill, upon usage, we spread greenish flames on the ground (somewhat like Mesmers torch skill, The Prestige) and grant Vigor to us and our allies and additionally apply a little burning to enemies. Little, since it’s AoE and we want to stay reasonable don’t we.
That’s all I have, I’m open for ideas, all I want is the necromancer to wield a torch and apply bad kitten greenish flames to people and watch them burn. I believe this would make solo PvE and PvP easier. The skills can obviously be changed a lot and still keep their basic ideas and I would be totally fine with that, but fixing such a big issue is extremely important for me personally since I really enjoy the necromancer’s role and playstyle, those are only the 2 things I feel we need most at the moment.
Thanks for the feedback in advance!