Guild Wars 2

TL;DR: Axe 1+2, signet of undeath, dhuumfire, foot in the grave, utilities in DS/RS suggestions.

I spent a couple hours writing this and making it stupid-easy to read and understand, so I hope this doesn’t just get buried in the piles of salt

SKILLS

Problematic Skill: Rending claws (axe skill 1); Damage too low, range too low.
Possible fixes: Increase range to 900, increase damage by 15-20%
Reasoning: Axe is our mid-range weapon, but 600 is simply too close due to movement abilities not being affected by chill/cripple, it is too easy for enemies to gap close 600. The damage of course, has always been low on axe 1, due to this, most players do not use it, increasing it will let axe see more play.

Problematic Skill: Ghastly Claws (axe skill 2); Too easily interrupted for the damage it does. No cleave, can be interrupted simply by moving to the side of the player. Making this skill very poor.
Possible fixes: Allow this skill to hit its target despite the players frontal positioning (can be cast while target is behind/to the side of the necro)
Reasoning: Damage is fine, but the ability to interrupt this skill is way too high to make it a viable and dependable weapon

TRAITS

Problematic trait: Foot in the grave; Underwhelming given what we have to give up to take this trait.
Possible fixes: Now also grants protection for 4s.
Reasoning: _To take this trait, we have to give up our only burning condi application, or 50% crit chance in DS. Currently the trade off is not worth it, so often times this trait is not picked. _

Problematic trait: Dhuumfire; This skill will be fine with Reaper shroud, but with death shroud the application is too slow, making this trait very underwhelming.
Possible fixes: Keep its current mechanic (1s) when in reaper shroud. When in death shroud: Applies 2s of burning instead of 1s.
Reasoning: Lifeblast is a slow cast, changing this to 2s while in DS gives a condi necro more choices on what DS ability they use. Increasing playability and choice, is simply good for the game.

UTILITIES

Problem Signets in DS/RS;
Possible fixes: Allow Signets passives to affect all necromancers in RS or DS. Allow utilities to be seen, but not toggle-able in RS/DS.
Reasoning: Having a class mechanic that harshly works against all other class mechanics is cumbersome, creates all sorts of problems, and is bad for playability, the game and the player (especially new ones)

Problematic Skill: Signet of Undeath; This skill has 3 second cast time. More often than not a player is dead before this can be cast. Coupled with the fact that blood magic received some resurrection support and the long cast time with poor passive, this signet sees almost no play.
Possible fixes: Change passive and active. 30s cd. Active: Instant cast: Stun break and 2 stacks of stability for 5s. Passive: increase LF generation of this passive to 5% every 3 seconds.
Reasoning: The main issue as a necromancer we face, being the slow ‘hard’ hitting ‘monster’ we are intended to be is that we are so easily CC’d that we often find ourselves ping-ponged around unable to do very much while burned down through LF and health. This would make this signet see play in most forms of gameplay, and solve one of our fundamental issues.

That’s all for now, thanks for reading, and I hope us necro’s can get some fundamental changes that we need.

I like everything in this list except the fix for Signet of Undeath. I’m really not a fan of things that depend on getting hit. The whole point of smart game play is to avoid getting hit. That’s the core of the active defense and dodge system this game is built around. I think the passive should still stay as constant life force generation, but the percentage definitely needs to increase. 1% every 3 seconds is terrible. I like your suggested changes to the active.

They really do need to implement these changes. Would go a long way to fixing necromancer / reaper functionality.

ODB.6891:

I like everything in this list except the fix for Signet of Undeath. I’m really not a fan of things that depend on getting hit. The whole point of smart game play is to avoid getting hit. That’s the core of the active defense and dodge system this game is built around. I think the passive should still stay as constant life force generation, but the percentage definitely needs to increase. 1% every 3 seconds is terrible. I like your suggested changes to the active.

They really do need to implement these changes. Would go a long way to fixing necromancer / reaper functionality.

This is a good point, ill change the OP.

Edit: I think 5% every 3 seconds is a good balanced number, so changed my suggestion to this.

I’m generally not a fan of “suggestions” to problems. Mostly because they’re often unbalanced and people have different idea’s on how to fix the problem.
I personally think we should generally just make sure we agree on the actual problems, present those and make generalized suggestions on where we think improvements should happen.

That said, I think these suggestions are quite good for most part. Most aren’t major overhauls, but just some tweaks and QoL improvements.
I disagree on 2 things though:

1) Signet of Undeath.
5% every 3 seconds really is an awful lot of LF you passively regenerate. Especially if it keeps working whilst in shroud (as per your other suggestion).
Also if you change the active to what you suggest, a cooldown reduction is probably needed as well. Probably something like 45 to 50 seconds, seeing as Dolyak Signet gives 10 stacks of stability for 8 seconds and has a 60 sec CD.

2) Foot in the Grave
Mistake in your reasoning. We don’t give up +20% damage under 50% HP, but we give up +50% crit chance while in DS.
On top of that. I think FitG is actually really good and gets too much flak. A stunbreak and stability on a 10 second cooldown is very strong. And there are a lot of builds that make good use of it.
(E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1-hqsKcdg)
I think the problem with FitG, is more that the 50% crit while in DS is too good. You take a blow by not picking it most of the time.

Nyth.3492:

I’m generally not a fan of “suggestions” to problems. Mostly because they’re often unbalanced and people have different idea’s on how to fix the problem.
I personally think we should generally just make sure we agree on the actual problems, present those and make generalized suggestions on where we think improvements should happen.

That said, I think these suggestions are quite good for most part. Most aren’t major overhauls, but just some tweaks and QoL improvements.
I disagree on 2 things though:

1) Signet of Undeath.
5% every 3 seconds really is an awful lot of LF you passively regenerate. Especially if it keeps working whilst in shroud (as per your other suggestion).
Also if you change the active to what you suggest, a cooldown reduction is probably needed as well. Probably something like 45 to 50 seconds, seeing as Dolyak Signet gives 10 stacks of stability for 8 seconds and has a 60 sec CD.

2) Foot in the Grave
Mistake in your reasoning. We don’t give up +20% damage under 50% HP, but we give up +50% crit chance while in DS.
On top of that. I think FitG is actually really good and gets too much flak. A stunbreak and stability on a 10 second cooldown is very strong. And there are a lot of builds that make good use of it.
(E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es1-hqsKcdg)
I think the problem with FitG, is more that the 50% crit while in DS is too good. You take a blow by not picking it most of the time.

Idk why I was thinking of the wrong trait, but I corrected the OP.

Signet of the undead= Gain 1% Life Force per second while in combat (Passive)
Signet of the undead= Summon 5 Jagged Horrors in a target area and deal 259 damage in that area 1 1/2 sec cast time 40 sec recharge.
change rise is a bad skill -__- make something like this
(insert any name here)
1sec cast time 40sec cool down. Damage foes around you (300 Damage on 600 radius) rip up to 3 boons from affected enemy’s and apply 1 sec of Daze per boon removed.

foot in the grave should pulse every second.
signets should work in ds pasive. I think every one agree on this one
Axe need a rework.
all this ideas are on a post I made but no one commnets -_-

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Rending claw : enhancing it’s range will make it directly compete with the scepter, boosting it’s base damage would make it a threat to any close range build. It will make other profession jealous.

Ghastly claw : the suggestion make it totally OP in sustainability potential. To much LF and siphon may proc from that (not to mention offensive traits and whatever).

Foot in the grave : Actually it’s the best defensive option in this traitline and also pretty good for what it does. Adding boons to necromancer is impossible due to specific necromancer’s design philosophy.

Dhumfire : traits need and will work the same whatever the shroud you have. If they start to introduce different effect per shroud it will become a gaz factory.

Signet in Shroud : They allowed the effect of the signet of vampirism to pass through the shroud, so we know that it’s doable. However, due to the passive effect of some signets, this would cause imbalance. (Mainly an issue of sustainability while in shroud)

Signet of undead : 3 reasons here. The passive effect you want is totaly over the top, the necromancer’s design philosophy does not allow more boons to be given to the necromancer and (probably the most logical) each profession have to be plagued by at least 1 skill dedicated to the resurection of another player (beside the necromancer should probably be the more dedicated profession to this “resurection” thing)

All in all, none of these suggestion would “balance” or address the dire needs of the necromancer. The necromancer is bound to it’s own strict design philosophy and even if it mean improvement the dev won’t do anything that could go against this sacred philosophy. In fact, they did it when they introduced dhuumfire and they were forced to nerf everything around dhuumfire and then dhuumfire itself to keep their pride sound and safe while keeping the game balanced.

Dadnir.5038:

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Rending claw : enhancing it’s range will make it directly compete with the scepter, boosting it’s base damage would make it a threat to any close range build. It will make other profession jealous.

Scepter is… a condi weapon… axe is a power weapon, not sure where you are trying to go with this.

Dadnir.5038:

Ghastly claw : the suggestion make it totally OP in sustainability potential. To much LF and siphon may proc from that (not to mention offensive traits and whatever).

Foot in the grave : Actually it’s the best defensive option in this traitline and also pretty good for what it does. Adding boons to necromancer is impossible due to specific necromancer’s design philosophy.

Dhumfire : traits need and will work the same whatever the shroud you have. If they start to introduce different effect per shroud it will become a gaz factory.

It’s a different shroud, with different attack speeds. This would actually make alot of sense to have dhuumfire affect each auto differently.

Dadnir.5038:

Signet in Shroud : They allowed the effect of the signet of vampirism to pass through the shroud, so we know that it’s doable. However, due to the passive effect of some signets, this would cause imbalance. (Mainly an issue of sustainability while in shroud)

Signet of undead : 3 reasons here. The passive effect you want is totaly over the top, the necromancer’s design philosophy does not allow more boons to be given to the necromancer and (probably the most logical) each profession have to be plagued by at least 1 skill dedicated to the resurection of another player (beside the necromancer should probably be the more dedicated profession to this “resurection” thing)

It doesnt sound like you play necro at all. Self-might, retal, protection (on wells), and regeneration.

I think youre confusing “good” with “OP” as youve called everything OP, but forget other classes have these functionalities, but better.

You almost make yourself sound like another class’ shill.

All in all, none of these suggestion would “balance” or address the dire needs of the necromancer. The necromancer is bound to it’s own strict design philosophy and even if it mean improvement the dev won’t do anything that could go against this sacred philosophy. In fact, they did it when they introduced dhuumfire and they were forced to nerf everything around dhuumfire and then dhuumfire itself to keep their pride sound and safe while keeping the game balanced.

The point is to change that philosophy. Why do you want to beat down your own class and give up? The point of this discussion is to express the problems we have, and offer solutions.

Also, newsflash, the game is far from balanced in pvp, and pve for that matter.

If you have something better to “balance” us, then speak up, otherwise don’t just dismiss other necromancers from discussion, because you add nothing to the discussion and solving the problem.

Dadnir.5038:

Rending claw : enhancing it’s range will make it directly compete with the scepter, boosting it’s base damage would make it a threat to any close range build. It will make other profession jealous.

Why? Scepter is a condition weapon, axe is a power weapon.
Frankly I think Scepter needs a rework as well as it’s rather poor as a condition weapon.

The only reason a damage buff should be taken carefully, is because the axe might sideline the dagger. There is no other class that can objectively have any problem with necro damage as it’s already pretty low.

Ghastly claw : the suggestion make it totally OP in sustainability potential. To much LF and siphon may proc from that (not to mention offensive traits and whatever).

I think a big problem with axe #2 (and this goes for a lot of necro weapons), is that there is often very little reason to use anything but #1 spam, since weapon 1 spam is superior damage and the other skills don’t add enough to warrant their use.
Take Scepter #3, great ability by design, but the enemy needs a truckton of debuffs before this skill is worth its cast time over #1 spam.

In my experience other weapons/classes have this much less, because either:
a) The #2-#5 abilities do more damage
b) The #2-#5 abilities create a blast field or blast finisher
c) The #2-#5 abilities give debuffs that make them worth using on cooldown.

Foot in the grave : Actually it’s the best defensive option in this traitline and also pretty good for what it does. Adding boons to necromancer is impossible due to specific necromancer’s design philosophy.

Agreed it’s undervalued. The only thing i might like to see is it giving 1 extra stack, because 1 stack of stability is tough.
Definitely not pulsing stability like some people want though, that would make death shroud insane.

Dhumfire : traits need and will work the same whatever the shroud you have. If they start to introduce different effect per shroud it will become a gaz factory.

Dhuumfire post nerf is hardly ever taken anymore in anything but a weird condition builds. The skill got overnerfed real hard.
Why buff it, if reaper might make it viable? Because I strongly dislike GM traits that only work well if you invest massively in another traitline. That creates rigid and unoriginal builds. Dhuumfire needs a buff, they should be mindful enough to consider Reaper Shroud though.

Signet in Shroud : They allowed the effect of the signet of vampirism to pass through the shroud, so we know that it’s doable. However, due to the passive effect of some signets, this would cause imbalance. (Mainly an issue of sustainability while in shroud)

I appreciate your feedback, but you ought to read up on necromancer signets before you make this argument.
Our signets give us passively:
1) Healing when Struck (Vampirism)
2) Condition transfer from allies onto ourselves (Plague)
3) +Power (Spite)
4) +25% run speed (Locust)
5) Passive LF regen (Undeath)

None of these are particularly overpowered to be made functional in DS.

Signet of undead : 3 reasons here. The passive effect you want is totaly over the top, the necromancer’s design philosophy does not allow more boons to be given to the necromancer and (probably the most logical) each profession have to be plagued by at least 1 skill dedicated to the resurection of another player (beside the necromancer should probably be the more dedicated profession to this “resurection” thing)

I still kind of disagree that necromancers and boons don’t go together lorewise. Maybe not boon-sharing, but definitely buffing yourself.
Protection (like spectral armor) / Stability (we’re death incarnate, a slow unstoppable force) / Regeneration (through vampirism), for example.

But even disregarding that; there is a point where gameplay and balance > Lore and tradition.
I like the design philosophy for the necro from a lore point of view; but so far it’s failing hard in the game.
As for the at least 1 resurrection skill per class. I think resurrection would be ace for the necromancer, but again gameplay > lore; and as long as the skill remains buggy as it is, it’s hard to really make use of it.
Transfusion (GM in Blood Magic traitline) works much better in that regard.

All in all, none of these suggestion would “balance” or address the dire needs of the necromancer. The necromancer is bound to it’s own strict design philosophy and even if it mean improvement the dev won’t do anything that could go against this sacred philosophy. In fact, they did it when they introduced dhuumfire and they were forced to nerf everything around dhuumfire and then dhuumfire itself to keep their pride sound and safe while keeping the game balanced.

I don’t thing these suggestions would balance the necromancer either. But I do like some of them from a QoL point of view.
Because a lot of the problems stand:
1) Axe is kittenty
2) In lesser sence FitG, but mostly Dhuumfire is a bit “meh” compared to Death Perception.
3) DS locking us out of all our utilities is a trade off we’ll have to live with. But it’s going quite far. Signet passives are a lot worse for necromancer compared to other classes as their passive effects aren’t always available (and they aren’t even THAT strong to begin with).

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Sad you didn’t read the first sentence. I didn’t express my personal feeling about these suggestion but I described why it won’t happen from my experience of the dev point of view.

I’m not against QoL, I fact I’m starving for QoL on the necromancer. Well, I do not agree with those suggestion but that’s mostly because I have a different point of view on how these issue should be addressed.

The point is to change that philosophy. Why do you want to beat down your own class and give up? The point of this discussion is to express the problems we have, and offer solutions.

That may be because I’m a bit tired of fighting this ******* philosophy.

If you have something better to “balance” us, then speak up, otherwise don’t just dismiss other necromancers from discussion, because you add nothing to the discussion and solving the problem.

Players have different way of thinking, different perception of each profession and what I would suggest would probably be disliked by at least a part of the necromancer’s community. But for those specifics points, if it were me :

Rending claw : I think whatever is done to this skill, nothing will make it satisfying for the playerbase except a total rework of the skill itself. The principal issue being that axe is a so called “range weapon”. If it was me Axe would become a melee cleaving weapon.

Ghastly claw : Still in the mindset of axe being a melee weapon, this skill would become an aoe centered around the user with a whirl finisher.

FitG : this trait is fine as is. Honestly, asking for more would only be greedy.

Dhuumfire : This suggestion is totally of for me. The issue ain’t dhuumfire but life blast. So yeah, it may hurt a lot of people but here, the best way to make this trait on par for the different shroud is to make it so the different shrouds have the same attack speed. (beside, it’s not only Dhuumfire that is kitten up by these differences but also reaper mark and unyielding blast). Making Life Blast a faster skill at the cost of it’s base damage is, for me the way to go.

Signet in shroud : I am not sure it’s necessary and like I said it could become an issue with the potential passive LF gain in shroud. Basically with 2 signets and 1 trait you potentially gain 22,5% LF every 3 seconds.

Signet of undead : Well, here, you know, if it were me, I would be perfectly fine with your suggestion except for the 5% LF. Maybe change the passive so it heal 2% life every second to down allies (That would be the “Let’s go all the way!” mindset for their stupid necromancer’s support design). We could also imagine it granting 1% some life force for every incoming condition… etc.

All in all, there are plenty of things that need to change for the necromancer’s QoL. Be it relative to Well, Corruption, Minion, range weapon, Death shroud… etc. For everything I could imagine some minor change that would improve the general quality of life. But not all of the playerbase would agree with my point of view.

I like these suggestions, they don’t make the skills OP, but somewhat viable in some cases. +1

Nyth

Foot in the grave : Actually it’s the best defensive option in this traitline and also pretty good for what it does. Adding boons to necromancer is impossible due to specific necromancer’s design philosophy.

Now that it hink of it better pulsing would be over the top but atleast make it 2 stab and increase the duration by 2 more sec so we can have a safe stomp in ds or make ds not interupt action so we can have that

Dadnir.5038:

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Rending claw : enhancing it’s range will make it directly compete with the scepter, boosting it’s base damage would make it a threat to any close range build. It will make other profession jealous.

Ghastly claw : the suggestion make it totally OP in sustainability potential. To much LF and siphon may proc from that (not to mention offensive traits and whatever).

Foot in the grave : Actually it’s the best defensive option in this traitline and also pretty good for what it does. Adding boons to necromancer is impossible due to specific necromancer’s design philosophy.

Dhumfire : traits need and will work the same whatever the shroud you have. If they start to introduce different effect per shroud it will become a gaz factory.

Signet in Shroud : They allowed the effect of the signet of vampirism to pass through the shroud, so we know that it’s doable. However, due to the passive effect of some signets, this would cause imbalance. (Mainly an issue of sustainability while in shroud)

Signet of undead : 3 reasons here. The passive effect you want is totaly over the top, the necromancer’s design philosophy does not allow more boons to be given to the necromancer and (probably the most logical) each profession have to be plagued by at least 1 skill dedicated to the resurection of another player (beside the necromancer should probably be the more dedicated profession to this “resurection” thing)

All in all, none of these suggestion would “balance” or address the dire needs of the necromancer. The necromancer is bound to it’s own strict design philosophy and even if it mean improvement the dev won’t do anything that could go against this sacred philosophy. In fact, they did it when they introduced dhuumfire and they were forced to nerf everything around dhuumfire and then dhuumfire itself to keep their pride sound and safe while keeping the game balanced.

Like the others said, why would a powertype compete with a condi type weapon?

Rending Claws : Guess what, there are multiple skills with basically the same functionality but a LOT more damage and/or range on other professions.

FitG : Will become completely useless once Revenant is out, cause he has a trait that makes CC’s completely ignore 1 stack of stab and CC right through it. It needs 2 stacks with a longer duration. Also we really need to be able to stomp in shroud.

Signets: Only the active portion persists through shroud , however, all of the PASSIVE ones need to do so aswell. If you disagree, ask yourself : Do Engis lose their utilities and/or their effects with Kits? No. Does the Ele lose theirs with their summoned weapons? Nope. Since we already cannot even access our utilities in shroud, at least do not make signets useless 50% of the time (depending on how DS reliant the build is).

While I agree Dhuumfire should work the same in both shrouds, I think it should be done differently (like more burn but 1s ICD, or even back to on-crit and with 1s ICD), or Life Blast needs to change. Either become faster but less damage per hit (like Plague Blast), or become like Ele Staff Fireball, a small explosion hitting multiple targets.

I actually think the OP’s suggestions were all pretty balanced actually! I’d be happy to see any of them implemented, even though my own ideas are slightly different on some of them. For instance, I think Rending Claws should just become a cone skill (like Drake’s Breath), but I’d be happy if it was a tracking channel (like Life Siphon) as the OP suggests.

Similarly, I think the solution to Signet of Undeath would be to turn it into an elite. That way you can keep its current functionality, but boost it to a decent level (increase the passive’s life force gain, decrease the casting time of the active down to 2", like War Banner), and not have it be overpowered because you’re giving up an elite to do it. Mind you, I don’t think my solution is perfect either: there’s so much Quickness-stomping around that even with 2" you’ll be hard pressed to rez someone in time – there’s a reason no warrior takes War Banner anymore, and that reason is, well, the reason is Rampage’s 3k autoattacks and endless cc, but also a little bit the Quickness-stomps! :p

The only thing I don’t think they could ever implement is your Dhuumfire suggestion. I like your solution, but I don’t know if they have the capability to make traits change functionality when you equip different specialisations. (Which really begs the question: what are they going to do with Unyielding Blast?) I think the only way to make Dhuumfire not suck for core necros is to decrease the casting time of Life Blast so it’s the same as Reaper’s Shroud’s autoattack. You’d have to decrease LB’s damage proportionately as well, obviously, but I really think having an autoattack chance casting times just cause you spec a traitline is just asking for trouble down the line, it’ll create a balancing nightmare!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3aghyy/graphics_necromancer_changes/

@Shiki

Again, I ask people to read and understand at least the first sentence before flaming :

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Beside, in regard of the scepter, I think it was a condition weapon a long time ago before they nerfed it to the ground because of Dhuumfire. Now, if you dare to look at the scepter in a different way, you’ll see that except the fact that it lack a bit in regard of base damage, the auto attack have a descent speed and the #3 rd skill hit like a truck in zerk gear. Raising a tiny bit (10%) the base damage of the auto attack would just be what’s needed to change these horribles preconceptions that this weapon is a condition weapon while in fact it’s totally viable as a power weapon.

I’ve already state my point of view about the axe skill in a post that you probably didn’t even read.

FitG : It’s a fine trait as it is. Please do not argue that the revenant will get a double CC via trait, simply because it will be an issue that will affect all profession equally. We are not the only profession that get only one stability stack via a trait and even via skill. FitG will still keep it’s stun breacking effect that is already invaluable. Stomping/rezzing in shroud is already possible since age ago. Safe stomping is another story.

Dadnir.5038:

@Shiki

Again, I ask people to read and understand at least the first sentence before flaming :

Why none of these suggestion will happen (outside of any personal feeling about these suggestion) :

Beside, in regard of the scepter, I think it was a condition weapon a long time ago before they nerfed it to the ground because of Dhuumfire. Now, if you dare to look at the scepter in a different way, you’ll see that except the fact that it lack a bit in regard of base damage, the auto attack have a descent speed and the #3 rd skill hit like a truck in zerk gear. Raising a tiny bit (10%) the base damage of the auto attack would just be what’s needed to change these horribles preconceptions that this weapon is a condition weapon while in fact it’s totally viable as a power weapon.

I’ve already state my point of view about the axe skill in a post that you probably didn’t even read.

FitG : It’s a fine trait as it is. Please do not argue that the revenant will get a double CC via trait, simply because it will be an issue that will affect all profession equally. We are not the only profession that get only one stability stack via a trait and even via skill. FitG will still keep it’s stun breacking effect that is already invaluable. Stomping/rezzing in shroud is already possible since age ago. Safe stomping is another story.

Those are not based on personal feelings. It is simple logic. Anet just completely fails at it.