Guild Wars 2

Here are some things that I think would make Necro a brilliant class. These are all new ideas and of course assume that broken skills would be fixed as well.

1. Remove bleeds as the focus of the class. Between the cap and the rules for bleed stacking (new pushes off old), it’s too crowded for the class to shine.

2. Change Necro mechanics to focus on the more unusual conditions, for example Poison, Chill, etc.

3. I would LOVE to see Necros add new “sub-abilities” to conditions that enhance them. Basically, take the concept of Plague Form and make it into a theme. Necros could spec into auras that might, for example, add damage to the Cripple condition, allow Poison to stack intensity, add Blind to Weakness, etc. This would make every party appreciate having a Necro because they can objectively improve the group’s performance. Now THAT is a true “master of conditions”. Also, see #4.

4. Minions need to add something to group play. For example, the Flesh Golem could add 1 stack of Might to the group, duration 8 seconds, every time it attacks. Chaos monster (the one with the Blind ability) could add “25% chance to cause Blindness on critical hit” to everyone in the party. Bone minions could grant regeneration to the group when they die. Another angle on this is that certain traits could add conditions to the minions’ attacks; for example, all minions inflict 5s of vulnerability on each attack, all minions inflict 1s of Cripple when they attack, etc.

5. Just a thought – add an ability like “Reinforcement At Hand” , a grandmaster trait, that is something like “all minions will reanimate 5 seconds after dying without being recast.” This would help with minions v. aoe. For example, if you have a minion master Necro v. Lt Kohler in AC, every few seconds all his minions go boom and then most of his traits are wasted for 20-60s. Alternately, GM trait where minion cooldowns start ticking at the time that the minion is cast, not after it dies.

6. Add a cleave melee weapon, probably Axe. While Axe’s auto-attack deals very little damage, if it dealt an AoE weakness then it would be a strong addition to the group and would encourage a Necro to use a range that isn’t used by many classes and rarely offers enough to come closer than 1200.

7. Improve Necros ability to slowly regain life. It’s very hard to win a war of attrition without the ability to sustain. The siphon idea is ok because it isn’t burst healing, so it’s attrition style, slowly refilling. This could even apply group wide, for example a Life magic GM trait that reads "Allies receive a small heal (100pts) when applying a condition (1s internal cooldown – no 1k heals for “On My Mark”).

Minions applying aura buffs to the party is far too similar to the ranger spirits. Also the bonefiend and flesh golem both cripple on attack as it is.

Necros need fixes to some utility skills, to increase their viability in non-niche situations, slight fixes to minions to increase their utility, and a bit of trait reworking to give more useful and varied options. Thats it, we don’t need a big rework, just some fixes so things work as they were originally intended.

I like some of the ideas you have for Necro and I have added some of my own. Altho I will admit some of these are more wishful thinking rather than from a practical sense.

When I first started Necro I must admit I never really read up alot on what the class was, but I envisioned a class that mostly delt poison and weakness to the enemy and had minions that were the extra damage required for the class to be on par with others.

But when I played the class I was disappointed that although we do have a few forms of poison alot of them are either skills that aren’t good or there just isn’t enough of a stacking of poison and weakness. I would like to see these be more used in our class so that we bring something that no other class has alot of. Right now our bleeds altho are good there is alot of classes that bleed and can hit that 25 bleed stack quicker than us. Once that happens it negates at least one of our weapon sets and a good few of our utilities.

Minions I agree still need work done and I would be happy if they had some sort of immunity to AOE damage or some sort of reduction to AOE damage. Wither it be added to the 50% extra health trait I don’t know but right now they are just way too squishy and need some sort of boost.

Life force again we rely on it a whole lot and some builds are easier than others to build up life force. Again it would be handy to have a trait that when out of combat gradually built up lifeforce at so much % every so many seconds. It would help not only build our lifeforce up but also not have it too OP that it effects combat as it would only work out of combat.

Axe I do feel needs some loving, I don’t find it totally useless I just don’t find a reason to actually use it. Most of what the Axe does I can get from other weapons and gain better benefits. If I want damage I will go dagger mainhand, the channel outputs the same damage as Axe only I get some Health back, albeit not much it helps. I also get a nice handy immobilize for runners. If you take axe for the cripple then the scepter gives you cripple and at a further range and retaliation isn’t that great to be honest. Right now the Axe is a niche weapon that certain builds use but if someone got rid of Axe tomorrow I couldn’t say that I would miss it as much as the other weapons we have.

The thing I would like to see also is tweaks to current skills, plague is a great elite but I would also like it to transfer conditions on you back to the enemy every time it pulses. Wither you add that to the 1 skill as its not really that great, but its a change that suits the skill, plague to me is a virulent cloud. So I find it strange that when im in this form I get tons of conditions stacked on me and nothing I can do about it other than to soak it up.

Spectral Armor make it useful by adding either stability or even reflect. These are two things our class really lacks so either one of them would be useful and make this skill viable.

Lich Form – Reduce the guys size, he is way too big and just draws attention to you in WvW.

Wells – Have a trait for greater wells which increases their size or add a trait that allows the wells to immobilize anyone in them (max 5 like other AOE restrictions). This will help reduce the ease of which it is to dodge right out of the well.

Spectral Wall – Add reflect onto this, its a wall yet projectiles can fly through it. I just find it strange its more like Spectral Curtain but I suppose when designing it this never had the same ring to it.

Again all of these I suppose are just pipe dreams and like your suggestions I doubt will ever see the light of day. But one can only hope.

I REALLY like your idea on enhancing conditions. When I think of a necromancer I dont think of bleeding. I think of diseases, a walking plague spreading it to everything in its path. Your enhanced condition idea with epidemic would make me love playing my necro even more. I hate being in a group and having my main source of damage negated because almost every class applies bleeds.

Necros already have the longest chill durations btw.

Derk.3189:

Necros already have the longest chill durations btw.

That may be but that isnt a defining quality that people talk about when they think about necromancers.

That’s because people choose to see it that way. Necromancers actually do very well with a dagger and crit, does it really matter if others don’t see it as such? Who cares what other people talk about, everyone needs to start somewhere with their learning curve, its the facts that matter. Necromancers? Good at chill.

Necros are good at chill, cripple poison, and weakness. The problem is that, in pve, these abilities are so situational that they are nearly irrelevant. The profession just doesn’t bring anything that another profession can’t bring, and the other professions generally bring buffs for the group while doing their job. That’s where I would like to see Necro; add the ability to add modifications to existing condition – that is an important mechanic that no one else can do. They also need to bring something for the rest of the group, I think some form of slow-but-steady incremental advantage, such as all members gain 20% to life steal on crit, minons grant 3 stacks of might when they die, just something to help make the group better.

Scarran.9845:

The thing I would like to see also is tweaks to current skills, plague is a great elite but I would also like it to transfer conditions on you back to the enemy every time it pulses. Wither you add that to the 1 skill as its not really that great, but its a change that suits the skill, plague to me is a virulent cloud. So I find it strange that when im in this form I get tons of conditions stacked on me and nothing I can do about it other than to soak it up.

I totally agree with this, except with a twist. The conditions have a chance to mutate into a different condition when you transfer them back onto enemies, or perhaps they mutate into a boon on you.

I’d like to see traits that make fear cause immobilize, fear cause stun, fear cause daze, fear cause confusion.

Plus more ways than 6 to fear.

I am just throwing around ideas. The point is, Necros need to do something besides stack bleeds and go into death shroud and sometimes do cripple/poison and give themselves might. In my opinion, the class needs something more interesting as a “special ability” (compare death shroud to mesmer illusions, huge difference in how interesting and skillful the mechanics are), and needs to bring something group-oriented to group play.

Xynn.2748:

I am just throwing around ideas. The point is, Necros need to do something besides stack bleeds and go into death shroud and sometimes do cripple/poison and give themselves might. In my opinion, the class needs something more interesting as a “special ability” (compare death shroud to mesmer illusions, huge difference in how interesting and skillful the mechanics are), and needs to bring something group-oriented to group play.

Try playing a non-conditionmancer. Lich Form is hilarious because it’s so big!

I have 3 80’s already and regualry play with 6 or the 8 classes. Death Shroud is way better than 70 percent of the other classes :P.

Necro’s bring chill which is amazing in pvp and decent in pve. They bring the ability to “tank” or outsurvive just about any other class in the game. I run minion power build, and have a ton of fun bringing cripple, chill, and fear to my team as well as Life Transfer heals and great 1v1 target damage. If you don’t see how chill and cripple are beneficial to group play, you haven’t played in some of the dungeons. The higher you get the more kiting becomes important. In fact there are several fights out there where I spend time kiting a few mobs while my team rezzes someone or drops the other guys we are fighting.

I think Spectral utilities need some changes as they are pretty close to useless in pve outside of situational usage. However, the necro themselves adds a ton to group play. Vuln Stacking, slows, chills, and the ability to survive through just about anything. We don’t burst like a mesmer, warrior, or thief, but I rarely have to dodge, and I rarely need to get rezzed.

With the recent changes to releasing in dungeons, the ability to survive is huge!