Guild Wars 2

With turretneers going away, there is another gimmicky build I’d like ArenaNet to look at.

The necromancer power. It’s an interesting concept, poor execution.
The build is completely hindered by the fact you do not team fight without Lich Form. Lich on cooldown? Guard home and ping when you see 2 bodies running your way.
Sure, you can try to position yourself but once anyone sees that Well of Corruption everyone is going to burst that kitten of yours knowing that you are a threat and a threat that can die fast.

The second issue is obvious as well, Close to Death is monstrous. Easily 1-shotting most classes if they fall below 50% health in Lich Form or Death Shroud. Not to mention it’s lazy design, last I recall, the thief has the exact same trait called Executioner.

Necromancers lack an identity, come on ArenaNet.

_

It’s just gimmicky and not a good way to shape a power necro as a viable build. Now this suggestion won’t fix the identity problem entirely but it’s a good start.

Close to Death: Inflict vulnerability and gain super speed when you hit an enemy below the health threshold.
- 5 Vulnerability stacks: 5 seconds
- 2 seconds of Super Speed
- Health threshold: 50%
- Recharge 2 seconds

This will tone the burst damage as well as keep it very threatening, positioning will still be very important and if played aggressively, you won’t be completely screwed with a little focus.

_

I like the concept of a power necromancer becoming more aggressive when the opponent is low on health rather than the lame ’i’m do more damage because u low’ shtick.

yepp, Lich form is incredibly strong, but I think ppl don’t react to it appropriately and they don’t change anything in their comp or their builds against a powernecro, even though he can be completely shut down by small changes:

- Add sth. that blocks or reflects projectiles.
- Run a Fresh-Air Ele: insane DPS and very good against projectiles.
- Have enough DPS-classes where the Necro is to burst him down instantly when he’s lich-forming.

I don’t particularly like the flat dmg-buff’s against a certain health-amounts though, they could be a little more interesting – I give you that one.

CtD is very much uninspired (as with many things on the Necromancer) – but I do not think that Vulnerability is the key to change this, as they are fairly capable of stacking up to 25 stacks alone fairly quickly – much like other professions in the game

The super speed comes a bit close to the Thief Master trait called Critical Haste – so that does not help the facelessness as well…
Mind you that Executioner is a trait with similar effects as CtD – only it is extremely overshadowed by the brokenness of Immobilize via Panic Strike
I know that you should not compare builds and capabilities, but if you say A, you should also say B – which means a more ample solution needs to be given

How they could change it without gutting it? Dunno really, other people are more adapt in that than me

On the topic of Lich Form – I guess I am somewhat more outspoken about it than most people who play Necromancer, but I find it “extremely boring” … There is plenty of counterplay as PowerBottom says, but in the long run, having an Elite that is threatening for 1.5 abilities out of 5?
I get where Anet wanted to go with it, having Vulnerability for Extra DPS, the minions are inspired by Aura of the Lich – but what they created is an incohesive mess of an elite…
I personally think that they should’ve paid more attention to their old Avatar of Grenth which is so much more fleshed out than Lich Form…
Having the elite have a Melee Cleaving ability (and a crippling aura or something to stop people from kiting endlessly) while stealing bits of life is so much more in line with the Necromancer feel than this, it is unbelievable. I mean, you could’ve made Lich Form into a Mech suit, let it spawn robots and it could’ve been an Engineer Elite (figuratively speaking)

But hey, chances of the elite being reworked into something interesting is close to 0 – so all you gotta do is be patient and sit while HoT is creeping closer…

OP, as you declare something is a lazy design, would you care to define that term? Particularly in this case. It strikes more as complimentary design. Intended to work in conjunction with the focus of DPS. It is a very subjective concept that you state as a declaration. Do you confuse subjective opinion with that of objective fact?

Yea man 5 vuln stacks are totally comparable to 20% flat damage increase.
I like the super speed idea though. That’s what necros do best. Run like little kittenes.

Get off powermancer and stop trying to kitten my PvE and WvW zerg builds with your vuln, talking about identity that’s a nerf.

Lich ulti is the only thing that power necro has. Sure, the combo you can do does awesome dmg and can kill almost anyone, but the lack of mobility makes necro so easy to focus its not even funny. Even lich can be focused down pretty quick, and should be. Unless you have a mesmer with Moa ulti. I have more troubles against terromancers. But with all honesty, it is cause I’m bad

Another wise guy who thinks he can cover up a nerf by calling it something else.

Please, before anyone says anything about the necromancer, enlighten yourself:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPna1XlfVYqs

i’d rather have them change chill of death from random spinal shiver proc to something like “33% chance to chill enemies for 1s with your attack when they are under 50% health. 2s ICD”.

close to death is similar to bolt to the heart and executioner, nothing wrong with those traits.

Jekkt.6045:

i’d rather have them change chill of death from random spinal shiver proc to something like “33% chance to chill enemies with your attack when they are under 50% health. 2s ICD”.

close to death is similar to bolt to the heart and executioner, nothing wrong with those traits.

No boon hate is already weak nerf the kitten boon spam then yes. Wtf 33%?? It’s a master trait, no one uses Reaper’s Precision and CoD is made for damage, get off necro.

33% on a 2s cd on hit seems fair, chill is one of the strongest conditions ingame and with this necro would be able to keep a high chill uptime, making it impossible for enemies to disengage.

combine it with a sigil of ice, runes of ice and the upcoming greatsword that will have chill on the 3rd hit of the auto and you will have perm chill + perm +7% damage.
so before you talk and tell me to “get off necro” you should better check facts.

people don’t take chill of death because of the boon removal but because of the random high damage proc… i’d rather have the chill uptime over the damage, especially because it keeps procing all the time and not just once and would help the low mobility necro kiting enemies. necros already have good access to boon removal anyway…

Jekkt.6045:

33% on a 2s cd on hit seems fair, chill is one of the strongest conditions ingame and with this necro would be able to keep a high chill uptime, making it impossible for enemies to disengage.

people don’t take chill of death because of the boon removal but because of the random high damage proc… i’d rather have the chill uptime over the damage, especially because it keeps procing all the time and not just once and would help the low mobility necro kiting enemies. necros already have good access to boon removal anyway…

The actual Spinal Shivers is easily avoided ,all three celes manage great uptime protection, chill doesn’t do damage the great aspect is that that you get both without that horrible cast time on focus if you want permal chill it is possible with sigils and rune. There is a reason mesmers use boon removal on shatter, and thieves BT taking away that regen,protect and vigor will do more than slowing the inevitable.

Also no, necro doesn’t have good enough access to boon hate, why aren’t they praise as a counter of this meta?? Boons are what makes celes strong but why aren’t the necro facerolling them? 33 % is horrible Reaper’s Precision is 33% with no ICD on LF and is a adept trait why is it not chosen? You must like RNG don’t you?

High chill uptime would never solve necro mobility issue, that’s a core error my bad a blessing they were happy to put on us just like DS.

Sagat.3285:

Jekkt.6045:

33% on a 2s cd on hit seems fair, chill is one of the strongest conditions ingame and with this necro would be able to keep a high chill uptime, making it impossible for enemies to disengage.

people don’t take chill of death because of the boon removal but because of the random high damage proc… i’d rather have the chill uptime over the damage, especially because it keeps procing all the time and not just once and would help the low mobility necro kiting enemies. necros already have good access to boon removal anyway…

The actual Spinal Shivers is easily avoided same as well, all three celes manage great uptime protection, chill doesn’t do damage the great aspect is that that you get both without that horrible cast time on focus if you want permal chill it is possible with sigils and rune. There is a reason mesmers use boon removal on shatter, and thieves BT taking away that regen,protect and vigor will do more than slowing the inevitable.

Also no, necro doesn’t have good enough access to boon hate, why aren’t they praise as a counter of this meta?? Boons are what makes celes strong but why aren’t the necro facerolling them? 33 % is horrible Reaper’s Precision is 33% with no ICD on LF and is a adept trait why is not chosen? You must like RNG don’t you?

reaper’s precision is 33% on crit, thats a bit more than 15% chance if you have at least 50% crit chance, that’s an entirely different story – my suggestion is 33% chance for chill on hit.

necro is not a boon hate class but a boon corrupt class. mesmers have boon strip on shatter to rupt stability stomps on demand and thieves have bountiful theft so that they can use sleight of hand against stability.
power necros don’t have on demand boonstrips so it’s almost useless anyway.
condi necros are counters to boons, the reason why celestial kills necros is not because of “celestial” but because of the mobility (and cc for engi) that those classes bring. if they get low they can kite and regain health while a necro can’t, they come back and kill you.

and boons are not (only) what makes celes strong, the boons are always there for those classes. it’s the access to good healing and hybrid skills which excel with the stats of the celestial amulet.
ele and engi don’t even rely on might that much anymore, i have maybe 5 might stacks in a normal fight; boons are their defensive mechanism.

and btw, perm chill means +66% cooldown increase for enemy skills, that is extremely strong against everything except thief.

Jekkt.6045:

Sagat.3285:

Jekkt.6045:

33% on a 2s cd on hit seems fair, chill is one of the strongest conditions ingame and with this necro would be able to keep a high chill uptime, making it impossible for enemies to disengage.

people don’t take chill of death because of the boon removal but because of the random high damage proc… i’d rather have the chill uptime over the damage, especially because it keeps procing all the time and not just once and would help the low mobility necro kiting enemies. necros already have good access to boon removal anyway…

The actual Spinal Shivers is easily avoided same as well, all three celes manage great uptime protection, chill doesn’t do damage the great aspect is that that you get both without that horrible cast time on focus if you want permal chill it is possible with sigils and rune. There is a reason mesmers use boon removal on shatter, and thieves BT taking away that regen,protect and vigor will do more than slowing the inevitable.

Also no, necro doesn’t have good enough access to boon hate, why aren’t they praise as a counter of this meta?? Boons are what makes celes strong but why aren’t the necro facerolling them? 33 % is horrible Reaper’s Precision is 33% with no ICD on LF and is a adept trait why is not chosen? You must like RNG don’t you?

reaper’s precision is 33% on crit, thats a bit more than 15% chance if you have at least 50% crit chance, that’s an entirely different story – my suggestion is 33% chance for chill on hit.

necro is not a boon hate class but a boon corrupt class. mesmers have boon strip on shatter to rupt stability stomps on demand and thieves have bountiful theft so that they can use sleight of hand against stability.
power necros don’t have on demand boonstrips so it’s almost useless anyway.
condi necros are counters to boons, the reason why celestial kills necros is not because of “celestial” but because of the mobility (and cc for engi) that those classes bring. if they get low they can kite and regain health while a necro can’t, they come back and kill you.

and boons are not (only) what makes celes strong, the boons are always there for those classes. it’s the access to good healing and hybrid skills which excel with the stats of the celestial amulet.
ele and engi don’t even rely on might that much anymore, i have maybe 5 might stacks in a normal fight; boons are their defensive mechanism.

and btw, perm chill means +66% cooldown increase for enemy skills, that is extremely strong against everything except thief.

It wouldn’t matter, you wouldn’t be given a chance to make use of it or profit. Power necro has WoC,CoD,Spinal Shivers and Unholy Feast for boon hate. Taking away boon removal still counts as reducing boon hate, necro is a boon hate class. I don’t believe they would allow this anyway a damage modifier on chilled foes is more feasible.

Their roots behind necro damage was at least good one, boons are both offensive and defensive taking them away puts less pressure on you and more on them, but amount of boon hate doesn’t match boon spam.

of course boon hate is less present than boon spam, as i said, boons are defensive elements of certain classes, like protection and vigour for ele, if boon hate was as common as applying boons there would be no reason to give these classes the boons at all.

i’m not against the boon removal of spinal shivers but against the random damage, which can even crit up to 5k.
arenanet got away from this as you can see with the revenant, he has a trait on a 20s cd that casts the mallyx skill when the enemy has more than 3 boons, it applys confusion but no insta 3-5k damage.

and believe me, the chill would cripple, especially ele, more than the damage. chill of death is just as bad in terms of design as panic strike and incendiary powder.

Let’s not change Close to Death and nerf Necromancers even more in PvE. It might be a boring trait, but there is nothing wrong with it. Making Chill of Death better is a valid place to look at, as is changing it so it doesn’t get +50% damage when you pair it with the downed trait.

However, let’s not pretend like Chill of Death can’t be anticipated. If you are against a power Necro, expect to get hit with a burst when you fall below 50% HP. You know exactly when it is going to happen, and it requires the Necromancer to hit you to proc it. There are plenty of other bursts in the game which have no more “tells” than CoD, and it isn’t at all random, though it is passive.

Jekkt.6045:

of course boon hate is less present than boon spam, as i said, boons are defensive elements of certain classes, like protection and vigour for ele, if boon hate was as common as applying boons there would be no reason to give these classes the boons at all.

i’m not against the boon removal of spinal shivers but against the random damage, which can even crit up to 5k.
arenanet got away from this as you can see with the revenant, he has a trait on a 20s cd that casts the mallyx skill when the enemy has more than 3 boons, it applys confusion but no insta 3-5k damage.

and believe me, the chill would cripple, especially ele, more than the damage. chill of death is just as bad in terms of design as panic strike and incendiary powder.

Classes have condition has some of their defenses, not main but major blind for thief,weakness for necro and cleansing is off the charts boon hate deserves to be equal to boon spam that’s why counters exists and no it wouldn’t push those boon classes out because queues are random and it would/should be stronger on necro that’s the only identity they have left apart from condition transfer hello revenant!!!.

We kind of agree on the proc thing but that’s not a necro issue that’s GW2 in general.

you’re wrong on that. gw2 is keeping the hardcounters low and imo that’s the right way to do it. after all this isn’t rock paper scissor.

there are certain builds or classes that are better against certain builds or classes but there are no full counters in this game.

and defensive conditions are usually of a short nature, 3s blinds etc, and are not cleansed most of the time because you don’t want to waste a cleanse if it’s not necessary.

Jekkt.6045:

you’re wrong on that. gw2 is keeping the hardcounters low and imo that’s the right way to do it. after all this isn’t rock paper scissor.

there are certain builds or classes that are better against certain builds or classes but there are no full counters in this game.

Not hardcounters in classes but specs, a condition engi can win vs condition necro if he dodges transfers and CB, my zerker mesmer is not afraid of thieves on my signet lockdown but I do main a thief. There should be no hard counter classes just specs, didn’t come with stun break you are hard countered by CC spec not keep CC specs inferior so players with no stun break can rest easy.

Edit: Keep in mind I keep mentioning AoE boons and cleansing, conditions and boon hate don’t match at all.

Jekkt.6045:

there are certain builds or classes that are better against certain builds or classes but there are no full counters in this game.

Shoutnow comes pretty close and diamond skin can easily ruin a condi user’s day.

and defensive conditions are usually of a short nature, 3s blinds etc, and are not cleansed most of the time because you don’t want to waste a cleanse if it’s not necessary.

spinal shiver 5 second chill,enfeebling blood 6 seconds of weakness, signet of spite 10 second cripple, weakness, weakness from corrupt boon 10 seconds,… . All of them stacking in duration.

Tim.6450:

Jekkt.6045:

there are certain builds or classes that are better against certain builds or classes but there are no full counters in this game.

Shoutnow comes pretty close and diamond skin can easily ruin a condi user’s day.

and defensive conditions are usually of a short nature, 3s blinds etc, and are not cleansed most of the time because you don’t want to waste a cleanse if it’s not necessary.

spinal shiver 5 second chill,enfeebling blood 6 seconds of weakness, signet of spite 10 second cripple, weakness, weakness from corrupt boon 10 seconds,… . All of them stacking in duration.

i agree on diamond skin but it’s a very useless trait anyway and i would be very glad to have it changed any time.

cleansing these conditions is always situational, at least for me, if i’m already in melee range i will not cleanse the chill if i’m not in trouble, same for the cripple – though i always cleanse spite if i can.
do i want to burst? so i get rid of the weakness first.

it’s not much different for a mesmer that removes boons with the interrupt shatter and applys vulnerability before using mind wrack.
i don’t have the capabilities to remove all these conditions all the time and neither can the mesmer remove the boons all the time.

Jelzouki.4128:

Another wise guy who thinks he can cover up a nerf by calling it something else.

Please, before anyone says anything about the necromancer, enlighten yourself:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/external?l=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DPna1XlfVYqs

Hmmm, he said and I quote, “the lack of mobility puts the necromancer at a SEVERE disadvantage.”

Huh… Did you watch that? Last time I checked, I said something similar…

“Sure, you can try to position yourself but once anyone sees that Well of Corruption everyone is going to burst that kitten of yours knowing that you are a threat and a threat that can die fast.”

The sheer lack of positioning ability of the Necromancer is nothing new. As of right now, the Necromancer cannot be highly mobile, it’s not balanced like that.

_
To put it simply.
If the Revenant was released right now, it would replace the necromancer completely. The Revenant just outclasses the Necromancer in every aspect. It brings everything to the table with a bowl of BBQ chicken wings on top.

My opinion for the best approach to this is necromancer near death of himself or his enemies shouldn’t be more powerful or more tanky, rather, more aggressive. It gets faster, making the enemy unable to escape death. When having a low health bar to be feared. The concept of death being inevitable and coming quickly.

The necromancer IS not the class for positioning, however, in my opinion to give the necromancer an identity would be the class for situational focused, rewarding good timing and use (I’m looking at you staff 2, 3 and 4). Not about putting up a strong fight but more about FINISHING the fight.
Lowering recharge, decreasing casting time, increasing movement speed, it’s a class about death and death should come quickly.