Guild Wars 2

When looking at what Anet gave us with the current E-spec, we can see the “chronomancer” as an interesting example for the necromancer’s futur. The characteristic of the “chronomancer” is that he got a new specific buff (alacrity) alongside a debuff a bit less specific.

The idea of an Antidodge E-spec would be built while taking fusing this characteristic of the chronomancer with the specificities of the necromancer. The necromancer is designed around the fact that :
- he have to endure through the beating,
- is poor at dodging,
- a tiny bit of masochism (corruption),
- is supposed to be the debilitating profession.

I’m saying : “God! Anet! let us take advantage of that and give us a freaking E-spec with an unique debuff which only us can benefit from!”

In short, I think that a seemingly harmless condition like :

Wither : Dodge cost 10 more endurance. (slowly deplete breakbar for mobs)

fit us!

And to magnify this unique condition that belong only to us necromancer, traits would make us wield this condition like no one.

We could have special effects when we apply wither like damaging our foe(s)’s endurance, have special effect when affected by wither (“dry skin” -> reduce damage receive by 10% or “Thirst”->your next hit drain life (slightly high value) and you remove wither from you), special effect on foes affected by wither (drain life force on hit)… etc.

Obviously, our _wither_supply would come from the shroud, an off hand weapon and maybe our new set of uility skill.

The whole point of the spec being that we would forcibly force other profession to our level by seriously nerfing their ability to dodge our hit.

PS.: if some letters are missing it’s just that I’m not used to my keyboard

I agree Necromancer could use more movement and action penalties.

However, consider the history for…
Terror,
Dhuumfire,
Vampiric,
Torment
Deathly Chill

Anchoku.8142:

I agree Necromancer could use more movement and action penalties.

However, consider the history for…
Terror,
Dhuumfire,
Vampiric,
Torment
Deathly Chill

Well, all of those end up as damaging condition while this one purposedly hurt only the ability to dodge. But I understand what you mean since it would be something that ould be extremly bothersome for other players.

Oh man, and you thought thiefs just bee-line towards the necro now…

After giving it a bit more thought, here is how I see this coming into form :

New exclusive condition wither : Action that use endurance consume 20% more endurance.

F1 : shroud with random skill on skill 1 to 4 (those are skills that are meant to always work similarly whatever the shroud you use) and skill 5, Withering aura : wither and weaken foes around you every second for 5 seconds.

F2 : Use 20 endurance and inflict yourself wither in order to consume up to 2 conditions on up to 5 allies in radius. Wither duration 5 second, CD 10 seconds.

Weapon : Not important enough at this point. We will say axe off-hand because it’s convenient due to the fact that there is no need for an axe trait since it already exist.

Utility skills : I’m leaning toward mantra even if it bother me due to the fact that we may lack a “minion” skill.

Traits : Here is the core of the E-spec from my point of view.

Minor traits : This is our backbone :
1st : transform your shroud in “XX shroud”, allow you to use off-hand axe and mantra.
2nd : When you are affected by the condition wither reduce damage and condition damage taken by 10%
3rd : When you are affected by the condition wither improve damage and condition damage dealt by 10%

This is bold ain’kitten

Traitline “up” : Wither traitline
1- when you charge a mantra you are inflicted by the condition wither.
2- when you inflict wither to a foe, consume some of it’s endurance transforming it into life force. Endurance consumed 10, LF gain 2%.
3- When wither wear off from you, you gain 10 endurance.

Traitline middle : Endurance line
1- When you use endurance, drain twice the amount as life to up to 5 nearby foes. (100->120 on a dodge and 40->48 on F2 use, seem balanced for me)
2- F2 damage and weaken nearby foes
3-

Traitline down : Vigor traitline
1- automatically consume the boon vigor when it’s applyed on you. Gain 10 endurance an 5% LF. ICD 10 seconds.
2- siphon life when you corrupt vigor on a foe.
3-

Well I’m out of Idea right now but this is the concept. Use the necromancer affinity with condition to create a condition that fit him and make it like it’s a boon for the necromancer and kitten for other. The fact that it’s a condition is supposed to magnify this ambiguity of the necromancer toward it’s allies since you won’t like the fact that your allies cleanse you. This condition management is supposed to put this spec constantly on the edge.

@narcx : It may be troublesome for thief but it doesn’t mean that it’s directed to this profession. All professions are the same when it come to endurance and thief own other tools to evade. Wither is mainly though as a condition that the necromancer will want to keep on him while it supposed to be just a bother for other professions that will have to keep a close eye on their endurance bar when the necromancer chose to discard this advantage.

narcx.3570:

Oh man, and you thought thiefs just bee-line towards the necro now…

Er
No
Everyone beelines for the necro now

that whole wither condition idea is terrible, we already have weakness to debuff endurance. we need something like gw1 deep wound. reduce enemy max hp by % amount. something useful in pvp and especially pve. necro would suddenly have place in raids etc

Sublimatio.6981:

that whole wither condition idea is terrible, we already have weakness to debuff endurance. we need something like gw1 deep wound. reduce enemy max hp by % amount. something useful in pvp and especially pve. necro would suddenly have place in raids etc

I understand what you mean but visibly, you don’t understand the concept behind the spec. Also, it’s highly unlikely that we will ever see a condition like deep wound on GW2. Deep wound was a condition that was balanced for balanced health pool. In GW1, there was room for this condition because the health pool weren’t what kept players/mobs alive. In gw2, mobs and players have low reliance on heal and it’s especially true for mobs. If a player was able to shave millions of health point on a mob just with 1 condition, this would be extremly troublesome.

On point, what you don’t seem to understand, is that this E-spec is built around the design of the necromancer and it’s specific mechanisms. The idea is that the necromancer will hurt himslef to gain more power. That’s why skills mainly apply this condition on the necromancer itself. The main selling point is that it’s a boon in disguise that can’t be corrupt or removed by a foe while the drawback is that there is a minor side effect on you, your allies can strip you from your strenght and you’re party better not encounter an epidemic necromancer.

This E-spec ride on the thematic of endurance which is also a good way to hack at the breakbar of bosses. This is an E-spec that is in line with the necromancer : barely any support, focused on debilitating condition and pretty masochist.

The endurance management give even more depth to this spec since the design of the necromancer is that of a masochist that take the beating. So if you go further in this design, it’s logical to discard your dodging ability for more power, damage, defense, support… etc.

hurting oneself to gain power has been tried twice in this game across 2 classes, it was a failure in both cases. anet quickly fixed that on rev, left necro as it is. it just doesnt work for the fast paced combat. maybe if the sacrifices produced very powerful effects but that aint gonna happen