Guild Wars 2

Since I started playing back in February its been apparent that the necromancer community is very divided in how the profession should be improved and how they should play like. The biggest divide seems to be between 2 different groups of necromancer fans. Those who are fans of dark mage type classes from other games such as the witch, warlock or what have you. And those who are fans of the GW1 necromancer. Sometimes these people are one and the same, while other times one might love the GW1 necromancer’s play style but hate the play style of other similar themed classes or vise versa. And some of the fans love all versions and just want the GW2 necromancer to be stronger.

Either way you look at it, many of us can’t agree on anything when it comes to our profession. And it doesn’t help that fans of the first game feel very bitter about the changes made to our profession. This includes myself and if I’ve been less then polite, I apologies.

We have a push pull in our community that wants the necromancer to go in 2 directions that they might not be able to go into. On one side we have people who want to make them more like the dark mage type class from other games, where as on the other we have people who strongly want to keep the old ways of GW intact. One major problem with this is that one way might be good for half the Necromancer community but it might not be good for the other half.

Since I am on the side of keeping the necromancer true to form I can only explain my side. There are a few reasons why I want to keep the necromancer much like its GW1 counterpart. The first being the flavor of the profession. This one I’ve talked about multiple times, and pushed the idea of its lore over and over again to the point of exhaustion on both sides of the argument. Although this could hold up on its own, the problem seems to be the idea of balancing the profession. I personally believe that balance can be done with out changing the nature of the profession.

The second reason I want push them more into the direction of the GW1 necro is because they would have a party support opportunity that other professions couldn’t mimic. As well as really sticking out from other other professions for more reasons then just having death shroud. I don’t like the idea of giving them more access to boons, especially defensive boons like protection, vigor or stability. Rather giving them far more offensive buffing abilities like giving a vampiric aura or a barbs(http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Barbs) like effect.

The 3rd reason is I don’t want the necromancer to step on the toes of other professions or harm the return of professions from the first game I would love to see return. The Biggest example of this being the ritualist. As much as I love the necromancer, I do play a tone of alts to keep things feeling fresh. And giving the necromancer so much they didn’t have before, along with any profession, harms to potential return or addition of old or new professions.

I could get into more reasons, but lets hear for you. What are your reasons for desiring a change in the necromancer and what changes would you like to see?

My reason for desiring a change in the profession is that I feel like some of the trait lines are a bit strange and lack usefulness. For example death magic and blood magic have very situational grand master traits and the most of the rest of the traits are nice for support/staff use/wells/minions and whatnot but don’t actually give that much extra survivability to the necromancer, causing us to rely on weakness from the other trait lines rather than our scarce amount of protection availability. I feel like the minor traits in all of the the trait lines other than Curses are some of the least useful in the game, which of course is arguable. For example a 5 point trait in Illusions for Mesmer gives them CD reduction on all clones summoning skills (so like half their skills) . A 5 point trait for Engineers in Elixers gives them an Elixer B (3-4ish long lasting boons) at 75% health, and whatnot. Necromancers instead get Reanimator which is kinda meh, Barbed Precision which is GREAT, Parasitic Bond which is underwhelming, Gluttony which should’ve been automatically programmed in LF generation, and the blood magic regen trait which is actually alright. Some of the 15 and 25 point traits are a bit better but tend to be minor situational DPS boosts or random stat boosts that scale with another stat. The one I hate the most is the 25 spite trait, since getting might with that little health probably won’t turn any fights..

Thankfully though it sounds like things are changing. I never played GW1 but I’d really like to know why they were so great in that game. I think another idea is that GW2 was built with movement, dodging, and speed in terms of using skills, in mind. Most other MMOs make it harder to move and cast things quickly, and I think the necromancer was created more in mind to lack this mobility and ease that thieves, mesmers, rangers have.

Probably the biggest thing I’d like to see is better ways to engage in combat, since disengaging really isn’t that awful with spectral walk and death shroud. I’d like to see a leap finisher skill on land for say a power dagger build. Since right now with daggers, you just run in, maybe use Dark Pact and hope the enemy doesn’t move away too quickly. Thieves and mesmers have way too many ways to evade and elude melee necro builds right now. Thieves and mesmers also have steal, shadowstep, and illusionary leap to close the gap, while we only have DS 2 or sprectral grasp, which make meleeing difficult.

I am happy for the imminent trait changes and the addition of burning, but I wish we had more specific details about the balance patch.

nearlight.3064:

I never played GW1 but I’d really like to know why they were so great in that game.

GW1 had more rolls in the group then just damage, tank and healer. It had Damage support, control, protection, healing, DPS, tank. The unique concept of support through other means then just healing was very much a part of GW1 and the necromancer was very good at it. While control was a massive part of the game and necromancers could do some of it, they didn’t compare to the ranger or mesmer in that regard.

To further explain. The necromancer Would provide support to the party in other ways not just hitting things really hard or nuking them like a Elementalist would. Much of their power came from the physical interaction between there allies and foes. They would punish foes for using skills they where comfortable with and reward allies for doing what they where good at. Thus the example of Barbs and Vampiric aura that I posted. The Necromancer supported the party by giving allies incentive to strike there target. And by doing so allies would gain health or cause foes they weren’t even hitting to drop faster.

The weakest type of profession in GW1 for pve where the physical profession. Those that relied on hitting a foe with arrows, spears, swords or what ever weapon. Magic users, especially the Monk, Necromancer, and Ritualist dominated the much of the meta game. Other professions usually had very niche builds that would work in some situations but not all. The Necromancer would actually benefit more from a group using more rangers, warriors and dervishes then they would a magic based group. Not that they didn’t do well in a mostly magic group. So a necromancer could turn a weak group into a strong group with its damage support.

Another aspect of the necromancer was they could replace a tank without a problem. And they didn’t do it through a gimmicky death shroud mechanic. A Minion master in GW1 was far more powerful then it was in GW2. Being far weaker at the beginning of the fight, a necromancer could summon allies from dead foes to create a large mass of minions that could literally wall off melee attackers from your back line. A single minion in GW1 had average armor and health equaling out to that of a warrior. Although with there slow attack rate and no ability to defend them selves and no understanding of AOE, they would die rather quickly regardless. However, what they lacked in power and defenses they made up for in raw numbers. The major flaw of a MM was that they where a huge drain on a healer. Seeing as they would chew through there own health allot, they needed to stay back most the time. But if done right, the healing they required well made up for it for the survival of the group.

The Necromancer could also spread and maintain conditions far easier in GW1 then they can in GW2. Many of there abilities with conditions made them an idea candidate for pressure in PvP. Keeping bleeds and poison on foes equaled out to higher degen then burning did back then. Add disease on top of this, and there ability to life steal they could put people in tight situations.

With cross profession option in GW1, this also made the necromancer one of the ideal healers for a group. Because you could be a necromancer with secondary monk or ritualist, the necromancer’s primary mechanic of soul reaping would give them energy whenever something around them dies. This meant they could keep healing their allies long after a monk or ritualist would have run out of steam. There disadvantage in this though was they couldn’t be as strong of a healer as either of them, so using short recharge short cast healing skills was a plus.

There really wasn’t a situation you couldn’t bring a necromancer in back in GW1. Need a healer? Take a necromancer. need some more damage for your physical party? take a necromancer. Are you a bit heavy on the back line and need a front line? Take a necromancer. They did everything they needed to do and did it without hurting there flavor. They where so incredibly well designed for GW1 that Every other necromancer like class in other games should aspire to be what they are.

nearlight.3064:

I am happy for the imminent trait changes and the addition of burning, but I wish we had more specific details about the balance patch.

I’m looking forward to the changes the necromancer is getting in GW2. The devs did say there would be a new condition. Disease I hope? I don’t ever want to see burning on the necromancer ever! This breaks lore and flavor and is a cheap and lazy way to balance out the profession. And it doesn’t even fix the problem.

Burning is very much a part of the other group who wants the necromancer to be more like the dark mage professions from other games.

My reason for wanting change is down to wanting to see the game succeed. I loved GW1, and I really like what ArenaNet has been trying to do (break some of the molds of classic MMOs that have been holding the genre back for a decade). For this game to really succeed, and not just do fairly well (much like GW1 did), is for them to bring all the different portions of the game to about as perfect of balance as one can reach, and do so while maintaining strict differentiation between the classes. I hope they can do it, because at the core this game is great; in theory this could be one of the best MMOs to date, but they need some time to bring it there, and need to do the right things.

That is the core of why I want Necromancer balanced; I want every class balanced. It creates more interesting gameplay, where you can take any class into any group and feel meaningful, instead of being forced into FotM (zerk warrs only, ping gear or kick), and it makes the game much more personal, because I can play the way I want to (within bounds) and be competitive. I also love the Necromancer, and the whole theme of debuffing enemies and slowly pummeling them into submission.

As for how, I think there are multiple ways to enact change in each area of the game. PvE needs to have more “neutral” mechanics that don’t blatantly favor one thing (like reflection) and discourage something (like debuffs), or if they do, it needs to be done a la Fractals, where you need a team with everything to be able to handle it all. They also need to redo a lot of PvE “end-game” content so that every class has a reason to be taken. In the case of Necromancers, Bosses might stack a bunch of long duration boons every minute or so, or they might take increased damage per condition, do less burst damage and more small hits, there is a lot they could do here for us.

PvP (and some overall stuff) they need to tighten up trait lines. Some traits need combining, some need to be innate (mark size), some need to be replaced, but they need to tidy this all up and reform it a bit.
– The trees, themes of the trees, and stats are fine, just needs a bit of work.
– We need siphons to scale with healing, and we need sustain that scales with # of people, and proximity to them.
– Our “chase” mechanics need to be better, Dark Path and Spectral Grasp specifically. – Condition damage builds need a way to make conditions “stick” better, so they aren’t nullified outright by cleansing.
– We need some way to deal with CC, no amount of sustain in the world can fix this
– Axe needs some kind of buff, and something that retains it’s uniqueness (as in, don’t just do more damage)
– Minions need slight survivability buffs, but mainly they need their activation times reduced, AI needs to be spot on (I’ve noticed it working even worse recently), and Shadow Fiend needs some reworking
– General bug fixes to fix up all the remaining bugs
– A few skills need to be slightly changed

I think that is mainly it, although I am sure I left something out. I want them to keep the Necromancer flavor, not necessarily trying to reincarnate GW1 but at least keeping the heart of what a Necromancer is.

Bhawb.7408:

I think that is mainly it, although I am sure I left something out. I want them to keep the Necromancer flavor, not necessarily trying to reincarnate GW1 but at least keeping the heart of what a Necromancer is.

its interesting you mention that. When I compare the necromancer with its GW1 counterpart I wouldn’t have guessed they where ever related. When I compare the mesmer with its GW1 counterpart, I can see how they are related. Much of what the mesmer did from the punishment, to the interrupt to misdirection has been translated very well. The only thing that is missing is the energy denial. Although they have denial in other aspects.

In terms of the necromancer I’m really missing much of what they did in GW1. Not so much the static stand still mechanics but the failure to translate their offensive party support capabilities. Its hard to get into the necromancer when That is what I loved to do in GW1. Offensive support was amazingly fun and no profession did it better then a necromancer. And they are actually worse at offensive support then almost every other profession in GW2.

I don’t want them to translate EVERYTHING the necromancer did in GW1 to GW2. As cool as some of it may be, some of there skills are too narrow for GW2. Such as there ability to prevent shouts. I personally would like to have life sacrificing skills but I do understand that it doesn’t fit with the GW2 philosophy of simplicity as that sort of thing adds complication.

However small changes that make them more like they where in GW1 are something I desire. Disease as a condition would be a fun and interesting addition to the profession and also give necromancers a way to spread at least one condition without the need of epidemic. Barbs as a condition could easily giving them some very useful damage support making them desirable in teams with low condition damage that hit multiple times. a Vampiric aura would again increase there damage support as well as provide allies with small amounts of healing in the process. These are the 3 things that I would like to see return from GW1. I would be very happy with this on top of the changes being made already.

Some new territory I would like them to explore is keeping with there aggressive style of play, make life stealing scale with healing power. I know people are very against this for balance reasons, however I believe that it should be experimented with first before judging weather or not it would be broken. Because even back in GW1 when Life steal did actually scale up and wasn’t static, it was never broken when the necromancer themselves used it. The mesmer did that for them with there ability fast casting. However since the mesmer can’t break necromancer skills in GW2 there shouldn’t be that problem.

Sounds like an issue more from beta, at this point the Necro is what it is. And while I didn’t play GW1, sounds like a far cry from what it was there.

Most Necro’s now are resolved to the design mechanics already in place, but just want them to be a little better, and the profession more cohesive overall. Our weaknesses are well known and any way they are fixed effectively, regardless of thematic approach, I would be happy.

When I compare the mesmer with its GW1 counterpart, I can see how they are related. Much of what the mesmer did from the punishment, to the interrupt to misdirection has been translated very well. The only thing that is missing is the energy denial. Although they have denial in other aspects.

What? No way. I actually played Mesmer in Gw1 for years – and since beta i knew it was nothing like i used to play. Seriously the Illusions are pretty contradictal to the “be the first target in a teamfight, ‘cause otherwise you’ll lay waste to their support” feel of gameplay. Interrupts are nothing to the mesmer they used to be. The whole idea of hindering enemys at their play is soley reflected in confusion. I’d like back any class which could strip an enemy of a Skill. Had the Necromancer more acces to interrupts and confusion added to his nice chill – i’d love playing him as i used to play mesmer.

Sadly – i feel like if this game had less condition-removal and less condition-frequency but therefor longer lasting conditions – it’d be pretty awesome. Every condition on it’s own is imo quite unique. However most builds just go CONDITIONAPPLY and just put everything out and in seconds and in huge numbers. Ofcourse this forces the game to have every class acces to near constant conditon-removal – however it also strips the condition of their unique effects – i mean really, who cares nowadays if he got 5 stacks confusion, 8 Bleeds, Burning, Poison and Cripple from an engineer or 10 stacks of Bleed, Poison, Cripple, Chill and Weakness from a necromancer. It’s applied in 4 seconds and removed in one – but even if it where not you’d just be noticing your life drop significantly and your movement be slow. I find the whole concept of condition-spike nonsense. If you actually want to effect your opponents gameplay as for example chill is meant to do, you’d have to go full Chillomancer, which strips you of most your other usefulness as a CC or anything.
I’d like a Guildwars, in which no skill applies more than one condition, perhaps on a longer cooldown and complete lack of abilities to clean off of them.

Yeah… anyway just wanted to say that Gw2 Mesmer is not at all like it used to be in Gw1 – don’t say that.

zach.1847:

Yeah… anyway just wanted to say that Gw2 Mesmer is not at all like it used to be in Gw1 – don’t say that.

I played the mesmer rather none conventionally in GW1. And the feeling of them was very similar. The major difference is the interrupts are far easier to use and don’t punish you if you mess up. As for backlash that they often did, that is in GW2. Maybe they feel very different to you because the skill ceiling has been lower drastically between the two games. instead of Mistrust you have feedback. Instead of Simple Thievery you have Mimic. Rather then stealing skills strait up you steal boons. Rather then Hex Eater Vortex you have Null field.

I’m not even running a interruption build on my mesmer and I have 3 interrupts that I use regularly as well. So “Nothing” like the first game, I just don’t see it. What made them fun in the first game is still very much in the second game. Unless you dedicated your mesmer entirely to just sucking energy away. Then I guess i could see how they would be completely different for you. Personally, I didn’t do that much and didn’t enjoy it.

Although using a time slow mechanic might be needed looking back at the first game’s skills. Is that what you are missing? Slowing mechanics and energy denial?

My list of changes for necro I want:

- GW1 minions. No more sub-abilities, multiples of each minion type. Almost exactly like GW1 system except instead of the corpse system, minion skills cost life force. Other limiting factors on minions numbers are minion skill cooldown (ie, 1 bone fiend per 10 seconds or whatever) and innate hp degeneration.
- A new condition which necromancers have the most access too. Called Virulence, stacks in intensity, each stack increases condition damage by 1%. It’s vulnerability for conditions. Obviously the condition would be heavily tied to other conditions, featuring prominently in staff, scepter, offhand dagger and corruption skills.
- DS1 cast time decreased to 3/4s, total raw DPS remains the same. This is a buff for any on-hit or on-crit builds and generally would make DS feel a bit smoother.
- General buffs to Axe. Specifically, up front damage on Axe 1 and 3 increased, and life force gain on Axe 2 increased from 8 to 10%.
- Healing power scales siphoning abilities, 50% increase to siphoning trait nerfed in some way to compensate. Right now it’s totally counter-intuitive that toughness is a better way overall to amplify your long-term fight potential than healing power is, especially considering HP is totally shut down by poison.
- Buff unused utilities: signet of spite, signet of undeath, spectral wall, spectral armor, (and minions as detailed above)
- Buff or rework unused traits

I’m a big fan of the GW1 necromancer, but my issues with the class are probably the same as everyone else:

• Condition damage needs to be fixed, right now the cap makes it less effective than direct DPS by default.

• Death shroud needs to be improved. Maybe remove the degen of life force entirely. And make it deal more damage. Right now it is not something to be scared of.

• Control skills need to be improved, or bosses need to have their immunity to it removed.

• Minion ai needs to work.

• Staff projectiles need to move faster. Right now we can out run our own projectiles.

• We need better access to deflection and stability.

• Trait synergy needs to be fixed. Too many traits do not combine the way you’d expect. Or stop working entirely when combined.

• Some traits and skills are nearly useless. Does anyone bring spectral armor at all?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• Some traits and skills are nearly useless. Does anyone bring spectral armor at all?

If it had a 60 second cool down I would consider it. No guarantee.